


Write About Love

by grassle



Series: The Belle and Sebastian Verse [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Kid Fic, M/M, References to Addiction, References to self-harm, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2017-12-27 05:08:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 76,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grassle/pseuds/grassle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follows on from <i>The Life Pursuit<i>, the second Sherbastian fic, in which Sherlock and Sebastian now together post-TBB, went back to college, the place they met, to solve a case. In this, their still-new relationship is put to the test by an addition to their fledgling family and a close-to-home case to solve…</i></i></p><p>Don't get the arse about geographical, historical, medical, procedural or administrative inaccuracies. Or suspension points… Seriously. Don't. Cheers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

Excerpt from the Epilogue to **The Life Pursuit**

 

“Mate.” Seb pulled back, then away, then paced.

“What.”

“Don’t get mad.”

“Have I told you how much I hate it when you open with that?” Sherlock regarded Seb coolly. “If anything’s the matter, just say it.”

“Okay. Will do. Lord. Someone I want you to meet.”

Sherlock stared in surprise as Seb slipped out to the hallway, returning a second later with some sort of flat, rigid black-and-silver cocoon or sleeping bag he carried lengthways by its big handle. It was very small. Baby-sized, in fact. “You brought me a tiny pod?” was all he could think of to say.

“More like a tiny pod person.” Seb wriggled a bundle from the shell and let the shell drop onto a chair, pushing its handle flat against it. He cradled the bundle to him and pulled away the blanket from…the baby’s head. He turned so Sherlock could see the child, observe tiny hands clutching an old stuffed toy, dark hair, a wide pink mouth, and long eyelashes guarding sleeping eyes. Because the eyes were closed he couldn’t see the colour, but he would bet they were blue. He circled to the front to look at Seb’s apprehensive expression.

“To meet? Your…”

“Sister. Yes.”

“Well, give my congrats to your mother. She got her figure back amazingly quickly.”

“Half-sister. Beatrice.”

The name had sounded like Beeahtreeche, and it took Sherlock a second to realise it was the Italian pronunciation of Beatrice. “Oh.” He found he’d reached out and taken the little girl, who was not even three months old, he judged. He held her to his chest, secured fast by both arms as Seb was looking anxious and his hands had tightened around her as Sherlock lifted her.

“Umm. Pa has always had mistresses. Buxom, scented, silk-scarf-and-huge-sunglasses-wearing old money southern Europeans each and every one. Even when the trend was for weird-eyed bottle-blonde Russians or sing-song-accented bolt-on-chested Lithuanians. In that he’s a classicist, I suppose. Likes someone he can talk about business in Romance languages and eat carb-rich food with.”

“And you’ve always known?”

“Oh, I’ve grown up aware of a succession of Aunty Lias and Mimis and Pilars.” Seb shrugged.

“Bet you mother hasn’t known.”

“Quite. And any kind of sibling is a first. Pa was shocked too.”

Sherlock shifted the tiny bundle, feeling her settle her weight trustingly into him. He took a sniff of her soft hair, inhaling the scent of flowery soap and talcum powder and milk and fresh linen. Seb kissed Sherlock, then kissed the top of her dark curly head, his eyes still guarded.

“So we’re…babysitting Beatrice.” It wasn’t a question. He knew –

“Not…exactly. Don’t get – Oh God.”

“Don’t blaspheme. Tender ears present.”

“Aunty Chiara has very sadly passed away. So I told Pa we’d very kindly look after Bea, keep her safe and keep our mouths shut until he gets the balls to tell Ma. Or gets her so drunk she falls into a coma. Which would amount to the same. If he just blurted it out, she’d kill him, Belle! She’d shoot him and then get people to swear the pistol went off when he was cleaning it. Seriously. You know she carries a gun. Where do you think I got mine from? It’s one of her old and unfashionable ones. Won’t go with any of this season’s bags or shoes.”

“So that’s how we, or rather you, got so much of his blessing. Blackmail.”

Seb shrugged, looking rueful. “I’m a bit of a classicist too.”

“What else? Oh come on. There’s always more with you.”

“Well, Pops is distraught at her death. Can’t handle it. It was very sudden, out of the blue…and now, with Bea, it means her interests in the family business, which were administered by…Okay.” Sherlock was making ‘move it along’ gestures, as best as he could with his hands full of a tiny baby he wasn’t used to. “He can’t deal with the loss and thinks she was well, murdered. He mentioned her father and the long-term financial advisor died recently, for one thing. So I said we’d look into it, to get him closure.” This was in one breath, his eyes fixed on Sherlock’s, his face apprehensive.

“You mean…” Sherlock had no idea what this beyond-infuriating man meant.

“We’re sort of legal foster parents to a two-month-old for the foreseeable and investigating possible business malpractice and misappropriation and possible murder.” This came out in an even bigger rush.

“Sebastian bloody Wilkes.” Sherlock closed his eyes and shook his head. He opened his eyes and gazed at his fiancé over the scrap’s tufts of curls. “A new baby and a new case? What is this, you got your own wedding present along with mine? And all I could think of to get us was matching phones on a duo plan. I even got some leaflets to study. Look.”

He started to laugh, mostly at the look on Seb’s face, and the noise and his shaking woke the tiny Beatrice. She raised her head and looked at them both from big, startlingly dark blue eyes, her expression quizzical, more so as she dropped the orange beanbag toy she carried and accepted Raj, Sherlock’s ancient toy tiger he’d dug out and shoved in his bag to take with him and which he now handed down to her. It was as if he’d known. Fate.

“Ciao,” cooed Seb, stroking her soft cheek.

“Bella,” added Sherlock, nuzzling her.

“Belle,” corrected Seb.

“And Sebastian,” added Sherlock.

And the baby giggled, showing them her pink-ridged mouth and paler pink gums. Because, really, that said it all.

 

**Write About Love**

**Chapter One  
**

Sherlock regarded the baby he cuddled to him. “Where did she come from?”

“Belle. Your parents should have had this talk with you,” Seb began, laughing when Sherlock’s hands were too full for him to retaliate. “Up to me, is it, to fill the gaps?”

“You already do that. Well, one in particular. Most admirably, I might add. What? You’re blushing?”

Seb was covering Bea’s ears. She shook him off and tried to turn to glare, Sherlock thought. He sat down on the sofa so they could both hold her, across their laps.

“The answer to your question is the Ritz.”

“Oh. Afternoon tea and babies. One of life’s mysteries solved, at any rate,” replied Sherlock, sticking a gentle finger in between two of the poppers on the stretchy white all-in-one suit Bea wore. She giggled more and grabbed his finger. He knew then, right away, that was the exact moment he lost his heart to her completely. He looked at Seb helplessly.

“I know, mate. She did it to me when she grabbed my nose as I was trying to figure out how the baby seatbelt went on.” So Sherlock had to take his eyes from Bea for a moment to kiss Seb. His…co-parent. Wow. “She lived at the Ritz. The family has a suite there,” Seb continued. “I gather her mother kept her condition a secret, gave birth in the Kensington Wing of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, and I feel stupid because I bumped into her in the street a few months back and thought she looked fat.” He was rueful. “She had this sort of baggy cardigan and thick granny stockings on. I just thought she’d been pigging out, rom-com-style, after what I understood was the split.”

“So this…”

“Chiara.”

“And your father…” He couldn’t put Oliver Wilkes together with anyone else but Rose, his wife. “Weren’t together when…” He pointed down at the baby.

“No. It was quite brief. Pa reckons she gave him the push when her bump started to show. But we learnt today she wanted a baby and really, this was her last chance. Age-wise. She didn’t want Pa to have to choose, make changes…” Seb shrugged. “But she loved him. Had a document drawn up as soon as she was expecting, made Pa the baby’s guardian and one of her trustees.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve been at the Ritz with Pa just now. Chiara’s maid just carried on living there with Bea, after. Sherlock, are you…doing sign language?”

Sherlock rose to his feet to cover his blush. “She started it! I was just replying. She seems bright and –”

“Is not a lab rat.” Seb grabbed Bea and held her close, throwing a glare over at Sherlock. “Oh. Our first row as parents, and I’m the old stick-in-the-mud one. Heavens. Well, maybe just a few signs, then. And teach me too. And that’s not one, for sure.”

Sherlock was sticking his tongue out. He tried a move-it-along sign, and Seb grinned.

“Yeah, know that one. Pa swept me off to the hotel because he’d had a letter the day before yesterday from a lawyer, this ancient bloke she’d been with for years, about the…situation. So off we went, me, him – still in shock – his lawyer, my lawyer…”

“No one has PAs anymore. They’re the Ugg boots of the business world. Everyone’s so lawyered up. It’s like they’re pashminas,” bemoaned Sherlock, pacing.

“I requested my lawyer. I wanted everything aboveboard. Feel here.”

Sherlock gave him a raised-eyebrow look but obediently sat and felt in Seb’s inside jacket pocket. The envelope there contained a birth certificate, he supposed, along with a legal document appointing Sebastian – and him – as foster parents of the infant known as Beatrice Maria and legalese explaining foster care was the temporary acquisition of guardianship rights in relation to a child.

“Foster?”

“Adoption’s complicated in the UK. No private adoption, like in the States. Here you have to apply to a court. Having fostered will give us leverage. If we ever, I mean…” Seb shut up and focussed on the child. “Look at that face. I don’t need sign language for that one. It means she’s hungry.”

“Oh. Wait. Food? There’s nothing in. We’ll have to –”

“Dolt. Do you see any teeth? She has formula.” Seb lifted her up under her arms, let her dangle and kick in his arms as he laughed.

“What formula?” Sherlock the chemist was puzzled.

“Lord. You’re even more clueless than I was, and I’ve got godchildren. Get that bag from outside.”

It was huge. He raised startled eyes to Seb, who nodded. “Oh mate, they need lots. And that’s just a travel bag. Grab a bottle from a zip-up thermal case. The maid showed me, when she stopped crying. She wrote down some Italian phrases to say, too. We don’t have to. You just have to chatter to them.”

“That’s parrots, dolt.” Sherlock took a peek at the half-dozen childcare manuals in the bag. Between the two of them they sterilised their hands with disinfectant, got the plastic bottle open, set the inverted latex teat upright, trapped it in place, secured it with the rigid ring, then struggled over who was to feed her. Sherlock won, was patted clean with baby wipes and sat rigid and swaddled in all the muslin squares Seb draped him in to do so.

He looked down at first the bag of equipment but mostly at the suckling baby, her eyes closed in pleasure as she nestled in the crook of his arm and her tiny hands held onto the bottle. Seb sat next to him and rested his chin on Sherlock’s shoulder. The late-evening moment pressed in on them.

“Take a picture,” he whispered, so Seb did. He knew the soft look on Seb’s face was mirrored on his. “This…it’s serious, Seb. But are we…doing it again? Leaping into something big without thinking? Lestrade said we did.”

“Probably. But I think…it’s what we do. As long as we both want it, it should be okay.” Seb’s arm stole around him, and Sherlock nodded, returning his attention to Bea and the flow of the milk. There must be bottles babies could control the flow rate of. He’d have to look and design one if not. Beatrice looked so intelligent, she’d learn quickly.

“I think we’ll need a nanny.” He looked Seb right in the eyes, making him understand they both had lives and a relationship which needed…them. “You had one. What about her?”

“God no. She went into a home as soon as I went away to school.”

“Retirement?”

“No. A nursing home place. She had a kind of breakdown that she couldn’t keep my clothes on. Not like that, Belle. It’s serious. I had some sort of stress-related condition. I used to strip off stark-bollock naked whenever I got emotional. It was a way of coping and –”

Sherlock was laughing so much he had to pass Bea over. She looked most displeased at his shaking and the interruption.

“There’s absolutely no possible reply to that,” he wheezed.

“Umm. You don’t want to know how long the condition persisted. But worry not. It’s all in hand. A nanny should, in fact, be arriving soon. What…are you doing?”

Sherlock was looking up the chimney. “I saw it in a film,” he replied. “The nanny came down the chimney, I think.”

“That’s Father Christmas.” Seb shook his head. “Bea, we’ll have to educate your father alongside you. Must admit, I’m looking forward to rereading children’s books and especially to rewatching the classics. They’re all on DVD now, with commentaries, so we’ll be able to see what gits the famous actors really were, and that they hated kids.” He nodded in slow contentment. “Look; this is rutto. At least that’s what the maid called it. We’ll have to look it up.”

Sherlock looked, fascinated, as Seb cradled Bea over one shoulder and patted her back to make her burp.

“Seb, a nanny, though? I mean, we need one, but…our lifestyle? And if her mother was…done away with, mightn’t she be a target?” He found he was guarding his speech, trying to relay his meaning in code.

“Got it covered. We’ll be employing a manny. Male nanny, Belle. A mannyguard, in point of fact.”

“A male nanny…bodyguard? Are there such things?”

“Oh yes. Rare as hen’s teeth to find a bodyguard with an NVQ3 in childcare, learning and development, but I did it. He’s on leave at present, having just finished a job, but he’ll be here soon. And I’ve got de facto paternity leave. Wangled it out of Sir Alan earlier. Well, with Alli’s ma’s help.” He winked.

Sherlock crossed to him where he now stood, patting a sleepy Bea. He came close and hugged them. “Paternity. I find that very sexy.”

“Hmm. Let’s see how sexy it is when I’ve lost my looks due to the 2 a.m. feedings,” Seb replied.

“I’m usually awake then. I’ll do those.”

“Sherlock? Is that your removal van out – Eeeek!”

Interesting. He hadn’t heard Mrs Hudson come up the stairs, and he’d never heard her make that noise before. She advanced towards them in slow, tiny steps, her eyes fixed. Like Sherlock’s had done, her arms shot up to take the baby automatically. Was that the effect all babies had? Sherlock wondered, or was Beatrice, being stunningly bright and beautiful and intelligent-looking, superior? Another thing to test.

“Ah, Martha. We do need to see you, to sign various things, but you’ve caught me at a delicate moment.” Seb looked very rueful as he supervised Mrs Hudson’s transferal of Bea to her eager arms.

“She’s yours,” were Mrs Hudson’s words, her gaze flashing from Bea to Seb.

“Indeed.”

“Oh dear. I think I left the street door open. Sebastian, could you be a dear and run down for an old lady?”

She didn’t look that much of an old lady as she drew herself up. More like an avenging angel. And that trick was one he used himself, had used on Seb, Sherlock thought. Had he learnt it from Mrs Hudson? Huh.

“Sherlock.” She put a hand on his arm, inclined her head towards the baby. “I suppose this was before you and he got involved?”

“Yes.” And only then did it occur to Sherlock that Mrs Hudson assumed –

“Not planned, I suppose.” She tightened her lips.

“Not by the father, no.”

“But he’s done the right thing, at any rate.”

“He…usually does.”

“And you’re fine about it?” She searched his face anxiously, then suddenly smiled, huge and sunny. “Oh, Sherlock, dear. Don’t bother to answer. I can see you’re more than happy about it. Look at you all loved up! She’s a her?”

“Yes.” He knew he was grinning, his eyes screwed up and moist.

“That’s love.” Mrs Hudson nodded her approval.

“I suppose it is.”

“And you two are…”

“Bringing her up.”

“What’s her name, Sherlock?”

“Beatrice Maria d’Avalos Holmes Wilkes.” Seb returned and proffered the document. “The door was closed, by the way.” He smiled. Probably hadn’t even bothered to go down the stairs and check.

“Wait. D’Avalos? As in the d’Avalos family, the Avalon thing?” Sherlock stared hard at Seb.

“Umm. Thing as in one of the world’s largest family controlled cosmetics and beauty companies.”

“Oooh, I’ve followed Adele d’Avalos since the sixties!” twittered Mrs Hudson.

“Hair care, skin care, fragrances, dermatology, tissue engineering, pharmaceuticals and one of the world’s largest patent holders in nanotechnology. This year launching a hair and body products line for babies and children. Oh, and currently under fire for having taken over Beside The Seaside, England’s best-loved independent cruelty-free all-natural-ingredients beauty company and having closed down the original factory, putting an entire village out of work.”

“Family controlled?” Sherlock was remembering something…

“Although their biggest partner, Vevey, the Swiss multinational nutrition and health-related consumer goods company, are trying to buy the family out in exchange for a share in Vevey, and pressuring the founder’s daughter to agree.”

“Adele! Oh, she was a wild one in her youth! Always in the clubs and at the concerts, screaming along to the loud music!” Mrs Hudson shook her head. “And you know, people always used to tell me I had a look of her, with the dark hair all combed up, and me having such dark brown eyes, like a foreigner, and showing my legs above my knees! Oh yes. I was even mistaken for her once, in a coffee bar! Can you believe it. Still, she’s an old lady now. Older than me.” This was said challengingly. “She should be glad to step down, have a rest, especially as her husband passed on last year. I mean, she’s probably got all the money she needs! Mind you, what with that…Well. Not that I believe a word of it.”

“Her daughter Chiara was also a member of the family-run board. Before she died,” Seb said, quietly.

Mrs Hudson held Bea tight. Tighter. “Oh, Sebastian, I’d forgotten about… I’m so sorry for your loss. Really I am. Poor Adele – lost her husband and her only child. She wanted a big family, but only managed to have the one, had a lot of…tragedies. You know. Lucky to have one. They say that one didn’t care about the business, never worked for the family, but was happy enough to take the money for that foundation she ran. That doesn’t mean she was a freeloader. Seems more like she cared more about that, which shows she had a heart. And it means this little angel lost her mother. The poor, poor little mite. Still, she’s got us now. What? You’ll be living here, won’t you, so I can do my bit? I hope you don’t think I’d shirk my duty.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

Sherlock looked at Seb, and Seb looked back. “Erm,” was all Sherlock could manage.

“For one thing, her nappy needs changing.” Mrs Hudson held out a wriggling Bea as if making a point.

It was Sebastian’s turn to say, “Erm.” Followed by, “I took pictures of it being done earlier. Which I will not embarrass her with as she grows older. We could –”

“Come and learn now. That’s her bag, is it?”

Sherlock doubted he’d ever seen Mrs Hudson glare like that. They followed her meekly into Sherlock’s room and practiced one after the other with the disposable nappies and the wipes from a plastic box and cream from a tube while Bea wriggled and rolled and kicked her legs up, chirping.

“So this will be her room for now?” Mrs Hudson looked around at the fairly bare space, most of Sherlock’s stuff having been packed.

“Oh, and I suppose the nanny will have 221C?” said Sherlock, rolling his eyes.

“Ohhh, I’ve just had that damp proofing done, trying to sell the place! We can store John’s things in the attic…and you won’t want to be remodelling quite yet, will you? Have you even got plans drawn up?”

“Well –”

“Because you two should get used to…things before you have that stress. Especially now _you’ve_ gone and got yourself a little one.” Her glance was pointed. Seb was silent. Unusual.

“Wait,” said Sherlock, thinking quickly about 221 and central London vs. NWTwee. “Seriously? Seb?”

“As you know, I live in Hampstead, Martha. I’d thought we’d live there while we take our time redoing here.”

“You’re selling it, aren’t you, to buy here and Marie’s next door? Or have you got that much cash?”

“Well, I…I’m not saying that. I…”

“So you won’t want a baby and all her things cluttering up your house when you’ve got buyers coming round! And all that traipsing in and out at all hours won’t be good for a little one. Germs, noise…” She pursed her lips very tightly, then sat down on the bed, clutching Bea. “And…I’m not as young as I was. I’ve a lifetime of memories to pack up before I can be out of here. It won’t be easy.”

“And looking after a baby would…take your mind off it?”

“Doing a good deed for others would make me forget my own sadness, yes. Oooh – you could knock through on the top floor, to next door – make a nice room and playroom!”

“I was thinking of a dressing room,” muttered Seb, and Sherlock would have betted anything Seb had had some sneaky architect’s plan designed.

“And downstairs, with mine and C, you could make a split-level –”

“Lab,” and “Study,” came in two male voices. “Bagsy,” added Sherlock, smirking.

“See? With all these ideas, you’d best be on the spot, supervise.” Mrs Hudson nodded, and Sherlock had the feeling they were both on the spot as it was. “Now. I’ll take her with me for a while and you strip John’s room and pack it away. Plenty of bags and boxes and mothballs from what I gave you earlier, Sherlock. Poor thing will only have to suffer one night of this before we get this place done out tomorrow. Look lovely with pale cobalt walls and one of those trees stencilled on. With birds painted on too.”

“Birds?” Seb’s voice was weak. Mrs Hudson nodded and narrowed her eyes. “I’d best pop her with me over to Marie’s and get some ideas together while you see to packing. She’s got all those magazines – her daughter’s a hairdresser. You know, Sherlock. I’ll see when she can come out to the shops with us tomorrow.” She ransacked Bea’s bag with quick efficiency and was striding out with a swaddled little girl within seconds.

“Erm. Um. Well. I’d…”

“Better pop and get your things, Pops,” said Sherlock with a wicked smirk.

“ _Pops?_ What does that make you?”

“ _Father._ Classic.”

“She took our daughter! To show off to her ladyfriend!” Seb, emerging from shock, gestured around the empty room.

“What?”

“Oh Belle. Always so naïve.” Seb shook his head. “Actually, not a stencil. Or a decal. A free painting would look… What? I’ve always liked interior design. This way we can try out some ideas before we commit to the final product. Let me see that room upstairs. I hope the light’s better than this.” He rushed out, and Sherlock was left to wrangle the baby’s things. He hoped that wasn’t the pattern. Seb must have decided it would do: he set off to collect his things from Hampstead, calling over his shoulder for Sherlock to fetch in Bea’s things and set up a decent study space in the living room, he’d be working part-time from home.

Home. A fiancé and a baby, and a nice juicy crime to solve. His glow flickered during the helpful-neighbour-heavy-lifting session with Mrs Turner’s married ones. They were in turn all smug-married in the face of his and Seb’s boyfriend state, but tight-lipped with envy at Bea and annoyed at having to move when the house was sold. Sherlock, desperate for help, resorted to lying that it would be months – years – before any changes were made, and they’d probably be sitting tenants anyway, and could they could just take this heavier box and…

David was the one who wasn’t Welsh, despite the name, and the other one, being Welsh, had a name with no doubt at least five silent letters in it. One day he’d have to stop deleting the men. He thought they’d rumbled him, especially over the supper he, or rather Angelo, was forced to provide.

“So Beatrice is all your fiancé’s…” Call-me-Cade-it’s-easier said, lowering his gaze to his groin. “His were stronger, faster, is it?”

“Because twins would have been fairer. More expensive, though, I suppose.” Call-me-David-I-told-you-before stuck a heavy fork into two meatballs at the same time, and Sherlock looked away as he dunked them in the sauce and sucked them into his mouth.

Then he understood. “Oh, we tossed for it. A coin, I mean. The first baby’s Seb’s, yes, and the next one’s going to be mine. A boy. Then we’ll see.” That sounded feasible, didn’t it? He had no idea. And felt a little queasy. He was glad when they’d got all his stuff into John’s room and the entire nursery of clothes and equipment into his old room. The two met Seb on his return, and lent a final hand while Sherlock sank weakly onto the sofa.

“Look what I’ve got!” Seb brandished an ancient soft toy. It was hard to see what it was. Had been. “Crocky!”

“What’s happened to it? It was in much better condition at uni.”

Seb grabbed it from him. “I still needed him, in the years after. More, actually. Got me through some tough times, Crocky did.”

Sherlock dropped his gaze. He didn’t want to ask if breaking up with him had been among those times.

“And here’s our sleepy little angel!”

And people just waltzed in, did they, thought Sherlock, watching Mrs Hudson and Mrs Turner return Bea. He stood and watched as they changed her into nightwear, sponging her down, exclaiming over her clothes and that she’d need a Routine. It seemed to have a capital letter.

“Mate.” Seb turned to him in the silence after, once they were alone again. “Don’t get…Oh. You know the rest.” He led Sherlock into the kitchen. He’d slipped in through the kitchen corridor door earlier, Sherlock recalled. There, on the table, eating a huge bit of salmon was a large black-and-white cat, one whose black fur ended symmetrically just under its nose like he had a hood pulled down over his knowing green eyes. His fluffs of fur stuck out from the sides of its face, mirroring the shape of his whiskers. Beamish.

“He just jumped into the van,” Seb said, his tone imploring, his eyes beseeching.

“I’ve missed him,” admitted Sherlock, rubbing Beamish’s head. “But what about the other animals in your street? Doesn’t he look after them?”

“He’s passed the mantle on to Murphy. He’s the leader now. I think Beamish feels his work in NW3 is done. He needs a new challenge.”

“Where’s he –”

They followed him through the kitchen to the bedroom at the back, watched him shoulder the door open wider and explore the room. A minute later he’d jumped up on the rail of the cot, from where he bent down to sniff the sleeping baby, who snuffled against him. He sneezed, then moved to prowl along the thicker rail forming the top of the bed. He looked across at them, swishing his tail.

“Oh, right. Beamish, Beatrice. Beatrice, Beamish.”

“ _Our baby Beatrice_ ,” added Sherlock, shrugging at Seb. They nudged each other as the cat settled into a sphinx position on the rail, very much on guard over the sleeping baby, whose hands clutched an old toy tiger and an ancient and misshapen toy crocodile in lieu of the equally old red-orange thing she’d abandoned. He regarded them coolly from slanted eyes, dismissing them.

“Oh,” commented Seb, nodding.

“I see,” observed Sherlock. “But we still need a nanny?”

“Umm. And better yet, he left some salmon. Race you!”

 

Later still, Sherlock couldn’t concentrate on any of the baby books he was trying to study in the newly screened off – where had those screens come from? – study area. He couldn’t make a definite assessment of the much-vaunted Routine, not with all the muffled thuds from above. “Sebastian Wilkes!” he hissed up the short flight of stairs. “You’d better not be throwing yourself on the floor and crying because of the décor.”

“Did that for a bit, but at the lack of space. Well, and the décor,” Seb’s voice called back down. “Now I’m being part of the solution and making a walk-through closet.”

“Don’t you mean a walk-in wardrobe?”

“No, Belle. I’m turning the corridor into a closet. You walk through it. Along it. Out the other end. And find treasures hidden deep.” His voice was muffled.

“And cue heaps of being so deep in the closet, you find Narnia jokes. I know you have an absolute ton of clothes, but I didn’t think you’d need so many here. If you’re not going into the office, for one thing.”

“ _Sherlock Wendy Holmes._ ” A scandalised Seb came down to join him.

“That’s not my middle name! I don’t know how that story… Oh. Maybe I do now.” He glared at Seb.

“Sherlock _William_ Holmes,” corrected Seb, still outraged, “Are you suggesting I, I slop around in a tracksuit and T-shirt? Like some East End chav?” He’d lowered his voice as he enunciated the articles of clothing and the last three words, like he was mentioning something obscene or beyond the pale. Sherlock grinned and took him for another inspection of their baby. And cat. All seemed well. Sherlock pulled him away to crash on the sofa.

“Is it tomorrow or the day after? When were we in Oxford?” asked Seb. “All this parenting, I’m exhausted all ready. But seriously, well, thanks. For, well, everything.”

“You’re welcome,” whispered Sherlock, and kissed him. Seb kissed back, then pulled away to crease up into his crooked grin. “Are you as scared to go to bed as I am? And not just because of those hideous curtains?”

Sherlock understood. “We’ve got the baby monitor on. And the batteries are working.”

“Even so. But you know what it means? We can neck on the sofa like teenagers!”

“I don’t think I ever did. When I was, I mean,” Sherlock replied slowly.

“You poor deprived boy. Come here. I’ll show you what you were missing. Lie back. There. More. Bit more.”

“Is this horny teenagers role play or newly qualified dentist?” Sherlock enquired, nevertheless lying back as directed and undoing a couple of buttons, under his own initiative, just to make Seb gasp a little.

“So, never done this before? That’s okay; I have. Just do everything I say and things will be fine,” whispered Seb right in his ear, using his weight to blanket Sherlock in place. “You said your parents won’t be back for hours?”

Sherlock threw him a strained look. Seb narrowed his eyes. At least it’s not babysitter role play, his glare said.


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

So Sherlock shut up and let Seb nuzzle into his neck, licking and blowing on the wetness, then nipping, turning Sherlock’s involuntary shiver into a wriggle. He rubbed his way up Sherlock’s chin to his lips, parting them with his tongue, sliding his in in a series of tiny flicks and slips, then surging deep. Tongues met and slid over and under each other. Breathy gasps sighed out, and Sherlock moaned as Seb pressed harder and longer, pressing his head into the corner of the sofa arm. Seb cradled his face, held it firm as he set the pace and the angle, taking what he wanted. What Sherlock wanted. The feel of him on top of Sherlock was just potent and weight enough to promise, and Sherlock reached down and fondled Seb’s arse, squeezed him closer.

“You little tart. You’ve done this before,” Seb breathed in his ear. He shifted so he was kneeling in between Sherlock’s spread legs, and Sherlock used his knees to pull Seb closer still. “Leading me on like that. All that playing coy. I’ll teach you what happens to people who tease me.”

Sherlock shuttered his eyes with his lashes and wondered whether to mention there wasn’t enough room, or length for Seb to pin his arms over his head and make the rules that way. But the memory of their first time, them stretched out high on the roof in the moonlight and Seb forcing things to the next level in the face of Sherlock’s inexperience and diffidence, shone in Seb’s midnight eyes and was reflected in Sherlock’s. Seb undid the rest of Sherlock’s shirt buttons, taking his time to suck and administer sharp bits to Sherlock’s nipples, not stopping until they were swollen and dark, and Sherlock was practically whimpering. “You play the blushing virgin, but you’re as desperate as I am. Look at you. So aroused already. You’re so sensitive.” He twisted back up for another round of kisses, these dirtier, him completely in command.

Seb’s next move was to slide his hand down Sherlock’s stomach, giving a twisty grin as Sherlock hissed and his muscles twitched under the stimulation. Sherlock’s belt and button, his zip weren’t much of a deterrent, and Seb soon had his hand inside, had Sherlock’s cock free.

“We haven’t got long, so this is going to be a quickie. Just copy me, do what I do, and we’ll both get off. Next time I’ll go slower, give you a full service. If you’re good and you earn it. Well? Now!”

So Sherlock obeyed the dark whisper and mirrored Seb’s action, flicking a thumb over the cockhead to smear the shining drops of precum from the tip over the head. “Good. You’re doing fine. A natural,” Seb gasped as Sherlock copied his up and down stroke too hard, making Seb’s hips buck. “Spoke too soon. Pay attention! I wouldn’t want…to have to stop. Leave you hanging.”

This was totally off the cuff, and not that well thought out, but as usual, anything Seb did got Sherlock going. He was wrapped in the basenotes of Seb’s tangy lime cologne, could smell the sweat his recent exertion had dewed him in, could see his heightened skin colour, the dark glitter of his eyes. He couldn’t stop his head thudding back and his lips moaning out as he was pleasured, or more accurately his pleasure and fulfilment forced upon him, wrenched free of him.

Seb tutted sharply as Sherlock’s thrashing nearly pushed him away. He couldn’t help it; Seb knew he was most vulnerable there, just under the head. Knew and traded on that knowledge, as he worked the foreskin back hard and tight, brought his other hand to put pressure on Sherlock’s sac, to leave Sherlock wrecked, a slave to his body’s demands. He’d long since ceased imitating Seb’s motions, had had to let go to grip the back and edge of the sofa, but Seb didn’t criticise his lack of attention or expertise. He just leaned in to press close against Sherlock’s stomach, riding the constriction and friction he made there.

It meant they could rub their faces together, kiss and duel right through their climaxes, moaning and panting thickly until they had to move apart to breathe. Sherlock flung a hand onto Seb. It landed on his thigh and Sherlock could feel the fine trembling of his muscles. Seb slumped down next him and although Sherlock squashed up, Seb was danger in falling off the edge, despite Sherlock’s arm trying to make a barrier.

“All right?” Seb asked, squinting an eye. “Not one of my best. Bit confused as to direction, but…”

“It got us where we needed to go. It was good. Just a thought, but if you’d held on to the sofa arm, above my head, you’d got amazing traction and we could have rutted together,” commented Sherlock.

“Gimme a minute. Well, thirty. And a cup of coffee. Well, a pot. And a shoebox full of blow,” yawned Seb. He scrabbled at the floor just below him and came up with a sheet of paper. At his wordless question Sherlock nodded, and they cleaned up as best they could. Sherlock twitched the blanket down from the back of the sofa to cover them, and they spent their first night together in 221B, the baby monitor in pride of place on the coffee table. Sherlock hoped, really hoped, the transmission route was one-way only.

And of course they were discovered by Mrs Hudson, coming in what seemed like minutes later with a, “Have you prepared the daytime bottles? Oh, this place _pongs_ ,” as she swept through. Sherlock groaned and pulled the blanket over his head, but had to whip it off a moment later at the muffled shriek which sounded out.

“What’s that creature?” she hissed from the bedroom doorway. “A dirty great animal’s stood right over her!”

“Ah.” Seb made sure he was zipped up, then stood, and tried to stretch and pop all his limbs and muscles into working order. “Mrs Hudson, Beamish. And vice-versa. He’s a sort of watch-cat. He’ll be here for a while.” He did his charmingly rueful shrug and ushered Mrs Hudson in to the bedroom to let Beamish sniff her.

“I never heard the like! Cat nets, we used to use in my day. Protect the baby from beasts. And…” Sherlock tuned out the rest. Tried to delete it. He didn’t want to see a Beamish-Mrs H tug-of-war over Bea. Mainly because he thought he knew who would lose. At least the cat had no interest in dressing Bea up like some of porcelain doll in a frothy white dress to show off to…the band of architects and designers and stylists and builders and decorators who marched in and out. All day. It was hard enough fighting Seb for the bathroom let alone struggling through all the incomers Seb, aiding and abetting or being enabled by the two elderly ladies, deemed the bare minimum necessary to make the place marginally inhabitable. Naturally Seb couldn’t be arsed to schlep around the shops.

“All right?” asked Seb later, a hint of trepidation in his tone, snuggling behind him in the corridor beside the kitchen. “You’re not…brooding over how come Bea got the downstairs bathroom all to herself? Because, mate, if you’d ever lived with a female, you’d know letting them have their own bathroom cuts down domestic disputes by sixty-five percent.”

“No. That’s fine. Just all this. For instance, do we really need that… specialist pet architect chap?”

“Belle! Beamish needs to be able to get out onto the roof and down to the street, and no one needs to be able to get in from the roof! What’s this?” He indicated the display along the wall.

“Oh. Your repurposing of corridor space idea wasn’t that mad. This is my work wall. Didn’t seem right to use the living room anymore. That’s –”

“A family room. Lord. Sooner we get the sale sorted out and the knock-through done, the better. I mean, trust Madonna and Gwyneth to know what’s what about Central London living. Oooh, a gym!” Seb’s eyes turned briefly dreamy. He raised his voice above the sound of the home improvements, all be they temporary. “Talking of, we’d better have old man Lassiter over for a feed. Nosh and butter up.”

“When you lapse into City speak, I really can’t follow.” Sherlock squinted at his homemade family tree. Not much filled in so far… “Who? What? Why?”

“Your principal trustee. How much grovelling do you normally invest in with them? Oh. You don’t do any at all, do you? Oh. My. God. Well, we have to get him on side to release funds for your share if you want to buy with me.”

“Oh. Yes. But didn’t Oliver suggest breaking the trust? Can’t we just do that?”

“Sherlock! You don’t throw down your ace! And you polish your ace, big it up!” Seb was hyperventilating, so Sherlock tried to hold in a grin and fetched him some water. “Thanks. Corblimey. Do you want me to get Pa to advise my lawyer on doing that? So, what day would suit you? And you’d better make sure your parents know about your changed circs. There can’t be dissention in the ranks.”

“But…your parents said they’d come with us when we tell mine. That means we can’t tell anyone about Bea.”

“Might be better not yet. Pay it out in tranches.”

“Not everything’s a financial transaction, Sebastian!”

“How dare you, you…heretic!”

“Nap time!” trilled Mrs Hudson, slipping between them, less pristine baby under her arm, breaking their deadlock.

“Good. I’m rather tired.” Seb was looking pale.

“Not you, Father! You’re going to learn how to Settle the little mite, then it’s back to work.” She was scandalised, gesturing around at all the consultants and their samples. Was that…a vet, chasing Beamish? Sherlock wondered.

“ _I’m_ Father,” he corrected.

“Yes, I’ve decided I’m Pa _pa_. Just like that, accent on the last syllable. Phew. One problem solved anyway. Once more unto the breeches, or rather nappies!” And the trio disappeared, although Sherlock had no idea how Bea was expected to sleep with all the commotion. At least Beamish got to go out and about, because the vet was a specialist in behaviour, and was …teaching Beamish the intricacies of the traffic and crossings in NW1. Oh, what? The cat was probably quicker at sussing those things out than most humans were. He rather thought Mrs Hudson had won the earlier hiss-off, when the doctor had scolded them for not putting butter on the cat’s paws to trick him he was at home already in a new place. “Butter? In this day and age? And have you back again, charging us to moan on about his cholesterol, poor little scrap!”

He returned to his laptop and printed pages, ignoring the chaos around him and the need to contact his trustees, parents or – God forbid – his _brother_ , trying to understand the situation of the Avalon company, what Chiara had done there, and why anyone might have wanted to kill her. No; it was too difficult trying to gather information on companies, on reports and accounts. There were specialised search engines, or databases, with specific fields and query terms. He couldn’t even begin to penetrate that now, so he settled for basic background on the family, the d’Avalos clan.

Hardly a clan, though: each generation seemed to have just one child. Read like a saga it would be Beatrice Maria d’Avalos, daughter of Maria Chiara d’Avalos , daughter of Maria Adele d’Avalos, daughter of Alessandro d’Avalos. Rich man, minor nobility who’d fled Mussolini’s Italy, lover of beautiful women and beauty in women. He’d studied science and so developed a safe and effective natural home hair dye formula and resulting product for all the women like his wife who couldn’t get their hair tinted at salons or at home with wartime shortages of chemicals. Lucky he wasn’t major enough nobility to disdain trade: he sold his products to local London salons. “Shut up!” Sherlock hissed at the hordes tramping through his flat.

_’Av_ _a look at ’er! Adele ’Avalon’ d’Avalos makes London swing!_ An article in a sixties magazine Mrs Hudson had cleaned out from the attic described how the company Alessandro, Latin heartthrob, subsequently formed, researching and innovating into the field of beauty, had grown from him and two junior chemists to a hundred researchers by 1965. The mention was just background for the piece on Adele, darling of Swinging London, in her white boots and miniskirt, zooming in her Union Jack Mini Cooper from Carnaby Street boutique to Berkeley Square night club to Home Counties country house, portable transistor radio blaring out some loud pop tunes all the while. Sherlock ignored that, except as it pertained to Martha’s choice in fashion and accessories and make-up. Seemed early influences ran deep. The company of course was much bigger now, and marketing products in every sector of the beauty business and selling them everywhere.

He was rocking to and fro, hands over his ears to block out the noise, just starting to read up on Avalon’s acquisition of pharmaceutical companies in the mid-seventies and what share of the world’s prescription and over-the-counter market it held, his brain scrambling to remember something about the competition from generics, and layoffs, and… “Oh Christ!” He spared a moment to cry at the presence behind him holding a large bag. “Whatever you’re delivering either take it through there or up there and leave me alone!”

“How about I tell you where to leave it, man?”

Sherlock span around at the familiar raised accent, to stare at the tall, lean man with spiky blond hair and eerie blue eyes.

“Frik! Aren’t you still in Oxford?” He felt ashamed at his question and the ironic look in the bodyguard’s eyes. “I mean, on leave, or…Oh. Of course.” He nodded at the style of clothes Frik was wearing; black lace-up Doctor Martens, smart-casual stretchy jeans and a stretchy long-sleeved V-necked top, all in neutral colours, all chosen to make the wearer look inconspicuous, innocuous – harmless. A model employee providing service in any family. “Qualification in child management, or something, yes?”

“Yis. And common sense. So when Sebastian begged and pleaded, I only let him continue for a short while for the laughs: I knew I’d have to come back and sort you out. Again.”

“Thank God,” replied Seb, joining them and clasping Frik’s hand in relief.

“Yes.” Sherlock clapped the Afrikaner on the back.


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

“That your uniform, is it?” Sherlock grinned at the unassuming ensemble.

“Could be. But do you really need a nanny or just a bodyguard if there’s a Norlander coming?”

“What?” Sherlock looked at Sebastian, who shrugged too.

“Never mind.” Frik rolled his eyes. “Wasn’t looking forward to going undercover in the hat and white cuffs to infiltrate the nanny mafia anyway. This way I can play the manny card in Kensington Gardens and – Oh, do either of you have a title, hey?”

“He’s, like, the world’s sexiest consulting detective or something,” replied Seb, jerking his thumb at Sherlock. “Will that do?”

“Not really. And I don’t think even if you did you’d be eligible for your manny to sit on the titled _mummies’_ nannies’ benches anyway. Pity – they’re the best for gossip. Oh, you two have got so much to learn. You’d be on a Norland blacklist within a week anyway.”

“We’re more like dummy mummies than crummy mummies, though.” Seb tried to defend them. “I’m so grateful you agreed to cut short your break and come here.”

“No worries. It’ll be reflected in my relocation package.” Frik prowled around the living room, his eyes assessing. “I usually learn a new skill, or take a refresher course after a job ends, so I fitted that in yesterday.”

“What…were you doing?”

“ _Garrotting_.” Frik’s eyes gleamed, and Sherlock knew he shouldn’t have asked. There was a squeak at the door, and they all whipped around as it opened, slowly. Before Sherlock realised Frik had moved, he was in front of both him and Seb, ordering, “ _down_.” At least he didn’t draw a gun, Sherlock reflected, as a large mostly black cat came in and stared at them. Beamish had seemingly given the cat-whispering behavioural-training vet the slip and come home to be with his charge.

“Ah. Beamish, Frik. No names, no pack drill,” said Seb, straightening up from his crouch.

“Do people really say that?” Sherlock queried, standing up quickly, trying to pretend he hadn’t been dropping to the floor.

“No,” Frik informed him absently, getting down flat on his stomach and inching along to halt a short space from the cat.

“Okay. What?” Seb sounded very American all of sudden, and looked rather swishy as he flapped a hand at the scene on the rug, Frik and Beamish now nose to nose, engaged in a staring match, unblinking.

“I’m assuming he’s the dominant personality of the house,” said Frik quietly, still staring. He ignored the, “He only came yesterday!” and the, “He doesn’t even chip in for the rent!” from his two employers. “Cats are,” he said, “but I have to make sure he takes orders from me. He has to know my role.”

In less than a minute Beamish had given a slow blink in the face of the Artic blue glare. He let out a little meow. Frik extended a hand, and the cat first sniffed it, then rubbed it, indicating he wanted scratching in a certain spot behind an ear.

“How long…would you have kept that up?”

“And thank Christ you didn’t do it to us,” added Sherlock to Seb’s question.

“As long as it took. And no need.”

“No need because…”

Leave it, Sherlock begged Seb, mentally, shaking his head.

“Animals need firm boundaries. Yes, like children. Beamish, you lasted much longer than Humphrey.” Frik stood. “And much much longer than Tony.”

“Wait. Humphrey, Tony…as in Number Ten? Wow. I don’t remember seeing you in any photos,” said Seb. “Oh. That’s the point isn’t it. Did you look after –”

“The baby, yes.”

“And everything was fine?”

“Not so much as a colic. And _he’ll_ never be caught drunk or drugged up.” Frik cracked his knuckles, and the two of them jumped.

“You should do adult minding,” Seb was saying, when tip-tapping footsteps meant Mrs Hudson was coming up. She carried a small pile of old magazines and photocopies. Another forage in the attic and more information for them, it seemed.

“Yoo – oh.”

“Mrs Martha Hudson, Frik. And so on.” _What?_ Sherlock was just about sick of all the meet the folks. It was like being at a giant cocktail party.

“Our _nanny_ , Martha,” said Seb in the voice people normally saved for news which began, “You know how Granny wasn’t feeling well?”

“A _he nanny_? And what about me?” Although small, she took up a lot of room when she stalked into the middle of one.

“Well. About that. We didn’t think it fair to overburden –”

“ – the baby’s godmother with all the heavy work. Not fitting. For her station,” Sherlock improvised, unable to see Mrs Hudson hurt in any way.

_“Godmother? Me?_ Godmother to Adele d’Avalos’s beautiful grandchild!” She dropped to the chair, eyes huge and her gaze darting between them.

“And there’ll be plenty of work to do, once we inform her. She doesn’t know yet, and she’s not doing too well at the moment.”

“I know!” She grabbed Seb’s hand. “All the strain and her and her daughter estranged – again – when she passed on. I bet that’s why she kept it from her.”

Sherlock was trying to detangle who was who when his landlady finished, “Families. So vicious.”

“But when it’s all resolved, well. You can imagine.”

“A big christening.” She looked like she was imagining it already.

“Massive. At the Ritz,” Sherlock chipped in, and earned a slam in the ribs from Seb.

“Everything laid on for you – designers, hatters, stylists, makeup people: we need you looking even more wonderful than usual for the big day. You and your…plus one.” _And that’s how you do it,_ Seb’s smug look to Sherlock said.

“We were going to ask you properly, of course,” continued Sherlock, grabbing the mental baton. “You know, over a nice supper at…the Connaught. With…dancing.” His grandmother had been into that, he seemed to remember.

“You still can.” He ducked a little under the steel in her glance.

“Oh, Sherlock.” Were those stars in her eyes? “Who’ve you chosen as godfather?”

“Detective Inspector Lestrade.” The second he uttered the words, he knew he meant them.

“Greg? Well I never! Me and him, standing up for you!”

“You always have,” he replied, and he and Seb could have gone in for some weird synchronised sport as they plonked down on the arms of the chair and hugged an arm each around the woman.

“What about your side, Sebastian?”

“Oh, good Lord. Much more complicated. Protocol and so on. Have to see.”

_I win_ , Sherlock’s smug look said.

“Well, don’t you take too long. I mean, there’s the wedding as well. First. And now, young man. What about you?” Them in their places, she turned on Frik. “Are you a trained nanny? Do you have an NNEB, for instance?”

“It’s called the NVQ now, ma’am,” he replied. “Yes. To the highest level, three.”

“Oh. Not Norland, like her mum and gran had? And good enough for Mick Jagger. Sir Mick, rather. Still, that uniform…”

“Thank you! Finally! Someone who understands!” Frik approached. “May I?” And she held out her hand regally, for him to clasp. “It looks like you’re working in research too, ma’am.” He pointed at the pile of papers.

“Oh, call me Mrs Hudson, please. Just more mags. I’d forgotten Alessandro married his daughter’s English governess when his wife died!” She held up a copy of the article. Sherlock, seeing she hadn’t wanted to butcher her ancient picture magazines, felt a pang of…the emotion that this wonderfully kind, sweet lady never failed to trigger in him.

“Saving on her wages?” joked Seb, and got a mock slap with the magazine.

“She looks very strict. I think that’s why _Adele_ ” – she loves saying the name, Sherlock realised, hiding a grin – “was so wild. All the concerts and clubs. The reins were too tight. She ran off abroad and got married! Music producer and agent, he was. Beatles, Stones – everyone. Very trendy was Andrew Trevor. Adele loved her loud music! But she got a quickie divorce, no harm done. Then settled down and married that politician, helped him in his career in Westminster. Ever so prominent they got. Expect she could have been first lady. Mrs Turner’s Danny’s gone to look him up in the library. I’ll just add these bits to your genie tree, shall I? Show me, dear?”

Nanny, godmother, researcher – who thankfully knew nothing of the Internet – and now agony aunt as she whispered, “Don’t worry about him having a roving eye for the nanny, dear. He’s not like most men. He’s only got eyes for you now. I can see. Likes ’em dark-haired, anyway, like you and that poor Chiara. And you mustn’t mind about that.” Here she pointed towards Bea’s room to make her meaning plain. “Some men are like that. My husb… Well. I can manage, Sherlock dear.”

“I’ll put the kettle on. Nanny must need his tea!” Seb was enjoying his domestic role. There was a small knot of people in the kitchen, presumably waiting for him to resume his duties. Sherlock doubted Seb would get near the worktop.

“So you left the agency to work for Seb?” Sherlock asked Frik.

“No, man. They said this was a special job. I’m on attachment here for the foreseeable. Which means I’ll need a complete background of the case, stat. And we’ll need the firm’s resources. For instance, all these people here, has anyone checked their clearance? That has to be done with anyone who comes into contact with the mark.”

“ _Beatrice_. She’s called Beatrice.”

“I see.” He did, of course. “I’ll get on it, get on to the agency for checks.” He started snapping discreet photos. Sherlock hoped Seb could afford it. He turned, right into Mrs Hudson standing at the door to the corridor, obviously having heard the exchange.

“Mrs Hudson. You’re not –”

“Stupid. No. I realise this young man is a guard. Like famous people have.” She was whispering in his ear now, her voice tight with tension. “You think something…happened to her mum. That’s what you’re investigating. Oh. That poor Adele, already ill with grief and shock.” She poked a finger in Sherlock’s chest. “You might think it’ll upset her more, but she should know as soon as possible. So she can spend time with the baby. It’ll console her.”

Sherlock rubbed his chest. Her fingers were bony. “We will. We’ll sort this out quickly.” For the first time, he wondered about Chiara’s will. She must have made one. They had to solve this before it was read, surely? “It’s probably nothing, anyway.” He was reassuring himself now, he knew.

“Yes, Martha. It’s what Sherlock does. You know that. And I’m getting good at it too. We’ll be in good time for the christening!” Seb put a comforting arm around him.

“Humph. I certainly hope so. Oh, time to Get Her Up!”

She must have some sort of silent alarm clock for the Routine, Sherlock thought as the three men and one cat followed her meekly into the bedroom, where a tiny child, seemingly also with an inbuilt alarm clock, or one who hadn’t napped on schedule, peeped out between the wooden bars of her cot, making peek-a-boo noises.

“Oh.” Frik nodded at the little form in her all-in-one vest and knickers suit who was closing her blue eyes to force them to play baby hide and seek with her. “Not just a special job. A very special job. What a little beauty. Going to be a heartbreaker. If her fathers ever allow her to meet any boys. May I?” He approached, and she lifted her arms to be freed from the bed.

_Boys?_ His beautiful Beatrice? Oh, God… Sherlock determined right then and there she was going to…convent school. He’d get Seb to look them up.

“Way ahead of you. Got her name down for one here in London, the best in England, and one in NY. Just in case,” murmured Seb.

“I’ll keep you safe, angel,” Frik whispered to her as she stared at him, moving her head jerkily to see all his face before swiping at it with her hands.

“Um, ma’am?” They turned at the tiny tap at the door. Did all the people call Mrs H that? Probably. Easier, thought Sherlock. “We can bring down stuff from the attic while we’re strengthening the joists if you show us what…” The kid’s face vanished under the combined glares.

“Oh, I’d better…”

“Oh, please Martha. If I may leave you to direct the crews. Thank you,” replied Seb.

“Hey, this is cooled boiled water, yis?” Frik pointed at the waiting capped bottle and wilted under the d’uh look the departing Mrs H gave him. “Well, they need to hydrate,” he continued, a little weakly. “A lot of water is essential for preventing colic.”

With a last squeeze of Bea’s legs and a promise to be back, Mrs H left.

“I thought she was a child you were working a case for. You didn’t tell me she was yours,” he said to Seb.

“Ours,” Seb replied, looking at Sherlock. Sherlock didn’t say anything. Let them sort it out. He focussed on sponging Bea as she drank a little water. Hoped that was right. He wondered how long Seb would last under Frik’s stare.

“She’s related to you. Look, we can’t keep back anything about this case from one another.” As Seb looked down, Frik said, “Oh. _Mr Wilkes_. Well well. I suppose that explains the ants-in-the-pants behaviour the other day. And Mrs Wilkes…”

“Can never know. Ever. Ever. I’m deadly serious.”

“What, you think she’d find out from me? Her clothes?”

Sherlock showed him, and Seb continued, “You don’t understand. She’s…terrible. Terrifying. Can crack anyone. With just a few words and sighs and strategically timed leaving of the room then coming back in a different mood.” He gulped.

“You may have read on my CV I’m trained to withstand interrogation.”

“Well, you were probably on one of her courses. I’m convinced she leads them.”

“No worries. Hey, let’s get Beatrice out of here. I don’t like her around all these strangers.”

“Then I could finish the painting.” Seb indicated the wall.

“Painter and decorator. Very sexy,” Sherlock breathed in his ear. Seb grinned.

“I’ll see what I can do. Oh, she doesn’t like going in a pushchair or anything. Her mother’s maid said.”

“’Course not. She wouldn’t. She’s too curious. They’re too low down and she likes to interact.” Within a minute he had her strapped into a sling contraption on his chest. She faced inwards and kicked her legs out to the sides and chirped. He slotted on a strange abbreviated backpack with bandolier-type straps for bottles and wipes. Must be designed for freedom of movement and…other things, Sherlock reckoned.

“Show me the surroundings,” Frik instructed Sherlock.

They stopped for bottles, and Mrs Hudson exclaimed, “Sherlock! Put a jacket on to go out in.”

“It’s not that cold.”

“You can’t go out with Beatrice with you looking like that, all scruffy! It’s not decent. What would people say. And do your laces up better.”

She stared at Frik’s blond spikes as if thinking of combing them flat. Sherlock imagined her meeting Chris, with his orange crest of hair. He’d have to ask about him.


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

It was rather a relief to be out of the chaos. Sherlock hadn’t really imagined that making the commitment to live with someone would involve all that, but…

“Has she had a walk today?” Frik’s question cut into his brooding.

“No, don’t think so.”

“What time does she normally… Wrong question. Yesterday, what time did she go out?”

“I don’t think she did. That she does, much. In view of her…situation.”

“That won’t do. Babies need a walk every day.”

Sherlock glared at Frik. “You make her sound like a puppy.”

“Hello! What have we here! Not trouble in paradise already!”

“This is the nanny,” replied Sherlock, trying not to grit his teeth.

“Oooh!”

Sherlock left Frik to Dave or Wade or Braid or whatever his stupid name was. He took a sly photo, presuming the guard would need one. After a few moments’ questioning Frik had all he needed.

“Is he staring at my arse?” Frik asked as they moved down the street.

Sherlock looked back. “Mine, I rather think.”

“Nah, man. He prefers blonds. Oh. Sebastian’s car. Nice custom job. Which is yours?”

“I don’t have one.”

Frik stared. Beatrice trilled. “But you drive?”

“Ye…ess. Seb taught me years ago.” He remembered the mad journey down to the Millennium party at the country cottage, him watching Seb like a hawk, then copying what he’d seen when it was his turn to take the wheel.

“Well, you’ll need to upgrade your driving. Offensive and defensive skills. How to manage black ice, skids, and so on. And my car needs modifying. Put that on the list of things.”

“What l – Oh.” It was hard to take out his notebook and write with Bea holding on to his finger, and he had to wait until she made a grab for a vine from a hanging basket.

“Oh, how’s Chris?” Sherlock enquired. “I know you’ve finished your duties there, but will he be okay without you?”

“I left him a training schedule.”

Sherlock didn’t bother replying. Could imagine the maths professor staring at it bemusedly.

“And once the case was over, I have to admit I took the magic ju ju juice route with him,” Frik confessed. At Sherlock’s blank look he continued, “I told him I had a drink from the bush back home, from Kalahari Bushmen, that would make him invincible, able to do anything he wanted. Powerful like a lion.” Frik looked rueful.

“What? You… He…”

“Yeah. He knocked it back in one…and roared. Then he went up to this woman, I think her name was Clarissa, and just grabbed her! Dipped her low, groped her behind and Frenched her. It was epic, man!”

“Nerissa. What…” Sherlock was beyond words.

“Oh. She hit him. Then Kirsty hit her. Then Chris. He had to go the sick bay. It was a little awkward.”

“A…” Wait till Seb heard this.

“Yis. My fault. Some people can handle Um Bongo, others…not. But the lady, this Rissa, was just entering the porters’ lodge the next morning as I was leaving. Huge fur coat and dark glasses. I guess we’ll hear the rest soon enough.”

Sherlock wondered when he’d be able to speak again. He didn’t really need to. And Frik the bodyguard who’d helped him on his two previous cases was a lot more fun than Frik the mannyguard, dictating a Routine, which included a fluid intake chart for God’s sake, as one list and a list of case requirements as a second. They pounded the pavements of Baker Street for him to snap pictures of street angles, rooftops, alleys, CCTV cameras and traffic flow and systems. He should have walked around with the vet and Beamish, Sherlock reasoned. Traffic signals. Reminded him… Frik stared as Sherlock chalked a huge sign on a wall.

“This your local?”

“Sort of, yes.” What made this pub, vying for being as twee as Seb’s in Hampstead Village, attract Frik’s notice? Probably the outdoor tables and its lost-in-time air as it wrapped around the corner. “Occasionally. John goes –”

“Who?”

“My flatmate. Former flat – It’s complicated.”

“Anyone I need to worry about?”

“No.”

“Better not be. My job is to guard her. If there’s anything material being kept back…”

“There isn’t. You’re imagining what, some failed relationship, some disgruntled ex? It’s nothing of the sort. But in terms of a local, there’s Angelo’s. I’d better go there first and prepare them.” He couldn’t help the snort of laughter that escaped at the thought of him waltzing in to announce to Angelo, Tina, Billy and the latest Eastern European, who all loved John: “This is my fiancé, Sebastian, our daughter, Beatrice, and her nanny, Frik.” And, imagine what the security checks would turn up.

Beatrice started wriggling and making squealing noises, grabbing out at Sherlock. “The lady wants her daddy,” said Frik, unclasping the straps.

“ _Father_ ,” corrected Sherlock proudly, submitting to the strapping and clutching Bea in place despite the sling. He bent his head so she could touch his face. Her voice lilted as she prattled a non-stop stream of nonsense words and sounds. She held on to him so she could bounce higher as they walked and see all the streets and landmarks he was describing. She was really very intelligent and good company, he decided, then scowled as he caught Frik’s eye.

“What park is that?”

“Regent’s,” Sherlock answered. “Suitable for playtime?”

“Well, if this was some boho chic case, yes. But for a high society case, I’d better take her to Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens, establish a presence, get in on the relevant gossip. She’ll need a Silver Cross pram to blend in.”

“Those old-fashioned high ones? Will she go in one?”

“Yes. Babies like them. They can spread their stuff out, and they’re high up enough to look at you, engage with you, which this little princess likes. She’s got well-developed social and speech skills already.”

Sherlock preened. He’d known, of course, but confirmation by an expert…

“And they’re handmade, coach built, which means you can have them…modified. Particularly the hood. Don’t worry. My mission is to guard her. And I will. I’ll take her to Harrods’s tomorrow, to choose a colour. Do you have an account there? Either of you? Or anywhere similar?”

“Erm…”

“No worries. Won’t take long to open. But talking of guarding, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you able to protect her? What I mean is, Sebastian can fight, quite well, and he…enjoys it and the training, but can you?” He indicated Sherlock should sit for a moment on the bench. He took Beatrice, holding her high so she could swing about.

“I’ve learnt how to fight, yes.”

“I don’t just mean fencing. Sebastian mentioned that once.” He had a foot on the bench, was peering down.

“I can take care of myself. And Beatrice.” Under the piercing blue gaze he continued, “I learnt street fighting. Literally. I’ve never lost.” He let the gaze search him, held himself still, vulnerable, even.

“You’ve…had it rough at some point.” Frik moved back as Sherlock stood abruptly, turned away. Frik caught his arm. “Hey. Whatever it was you got yourself strong enough to beat it. It’s over now. You’re through it now. You’re here with Sebastian and your baby now.”

“I…know.”

“And I’m thinking it means you fight dirty.” Frik grinned. “Come with Sebastian to training one day? Once I’ve seen you, you’ll be able to go out with Beatrice without a guard.”

“Why don’t you call him Seb?”

Frik knew that meant yes, and he laughed. “It means something…less than complimentary in Afrikaans. I couldn’t call him that without laughing. Oh, nappies. Do you have a service? I’ll take that blank look as a no. We’ll need a really expensive service the Nappy Valley citizens use. The delivery staff see and hear everything.”

“Don’t tell me. That was the source of the leaks – no pun intended – of dissention in the Cabinet under Blair. Once they changed service provider or switched to disposables, all was well.” Sherlock curled a lip.

“Your father tell you that? Or your brother? Yes, I know who you are. Your family, I mean.”

“You had me checked out…because Seb employed you to guard me?” The case that had brought him and Seb together again seemed so long ago. He didn’t know whether to be angry or pleased at the full service Seb had seemingly provided.

“Yis. And when most of it’s…censored, it’s just easier to employ more guards round the clock.”

“Oh.” Sherlock really hoped Seb was as rich as he seemed. This must all have cost and must still be costing a fortune. He’d have to put off his doctorate and go out to work. “I don’t need guarding. Just…our daughter.” It still felt strange saying it. Strange but right. He clasped her back on again and tightened the straps. “Wait. Why the need for medical attention? Chris only got hit?”

“I was being polite, man. They both kneed him in the balls. Really hard, in Kirsty’s case. Chris passed out.”

“He was on the verge of fainting anyway.”

“True. _Back. Behind me._ ”

Sherlock froze at the iron in the tone, and when he didn’t move instantly, Frik was in front of him. They were back at Speedy’s and three figures were waiting between the café and 221. “Oh, it’s okay. They’re members of my network. The Irregulars.”

“They’re…”

“Homeless, yeah.” Lee stuck out a grimy fingerless-gloved hand to shake.

“Tramps, in olde-worlde language,” added Stu.

“Of no fixed abode.” This was Angie. “And could do with a cuppa.” She glanced at the café. “Sherlock, you got a kid? Wow. Definitely calls for a cuppa.”

“This is more the local,” Sherlock informed Frik. “Come on.” The bodyguard had to know about Sherlock’s ears and eyes about London, that invisible population who bought him reports, helped him monitor the pulse and temperature of the city and looked out for anything likely to affect him and those closest to him, which latterly included Seb, and now, of course, the baby,

Also they couldn’t keep Beatrice indoors all day. She had to take her place in their lives, in their community. So Frik mapped out the café, escape routes, how defensible it was, and Sherlock was informed that hot drinks must never ever be consumed around a baby and that babies must be watched around foreign objects. He also learnt that the waiters and presumably most of the street felt sorry for him, having taken up with a boyfriend who couldn’t keep in it his trousers and who’d presented him with a new baby weeks into their relationship. His designer-baby-via-surrogate-mother story hadn’t flown. Still, their tea and cakes were free. Interestingly, despite reacting as a chemist might, insisting everyone swabbed down with antiseptic before they handled her, he had his first gut parental reaction when he thought, “I hope her jabs are up-to-date,” as Angie gave Beatrice her bottle.

And they were only waylaid once more and Beatrice cooed over once more, by Mrs Turner and her grandson.

“Thank you, Daniel.” Sherlock took the folder of papers and passed over a five-pound note. The kid grinned, and Sherlock knew it was because he liked being called by his proper name instead of the kid version _Danny_. He didn’t hold out much hope the boy’s research into Adele’s marriage and her husband’s career would bring them any nearer to the answer. Mainly because they hadn’t defined the questions. Thank God 221B looked more habitable and the workmen had departed. Seb looked shattered.

“Well.” Frik hefted his bag. “If you’ll tell me where my room is, I’ll get settled.”

“Oh, I’ll show you your nanny flat, Mr Frik, dear.” Mrs Hudson patted his arm. “You must tell me all the things it needs, how you want it. I’ll be doing that tomorrow.”

Sherlock suddenly felt a strange pang, a kick almost, of missing John. Just because here was Mrs Hudson, really their housekeeper after all, and no one else would understand why that was so –

“We’ll let the Daddies –”

“Father,” and, “Pa _pa_ ,” were interjected simultaneously.

“– get on with Bath Time and Putting Her Down. You’ve got your list?”

“Yes,” came in two voices and both men held out bits of paper. Sherlock frowned at Seb, and Seb looked puzzled at him. They both tried not to look as stupid as they felt when plastic aprons were tied over their clothes by the baby’s beaming godmother.

 

“Bath time is playtime,” quoted Seb. “To tire the little one out for bed.” He wafted some bubbles over the little girl who was kicking her legs as she rested in the baby-shaped hollow on her strange foam baby bath support thing, making it spin and drift.

“Which she knows she’s going to and not just for a nap because she gets wiped down with lavender water after and not just eau de cologne,” read Sherlock, who hadn’t memorised his list. He’d almost forgotten Seb’s powers of information retention and recall. “Oh, and she gets put into a fresh and lightweight bodysuit under her sleep suit. For which she needs an account at Harrods.”

“Got one.” Seb tapped his nose.

“You or Bea?”

“Both.”

“Oh. Just me missing then. Shame to let the side down.”

“I lift using my knees,” recited Seb, heaving Bea out, blowing her tummy free of bubbles. “Oh. Belle, look. She’s _gorgeous_.” She was. Fluffy swirls of hair peeped from the hood of the towel wrapping her, the white making her blue eyes enormous and glowing, and she pushed a chubby arm free. “We can do this, can’t we?”

Sherlock knew what he meant. It was getting realer by the hour, somehow. “Oh course we can. With help. Now examine her for nappy rash, cradle cap and split toe or finger nails. I’ll use the nasal aspirator and the thermometer strip, just in case. Do you think we need the gum massager?”

“I don’t know what the last three things are,” said Seb, dolefully, peering into the plastic box with its individually packaged essentials.


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

They decided against weighing and measuring her; that was probably something that happened at the –

“Paediatrician’s. She needs one.”

“The _right_ one,” corrected Sherlock. “Oh. You’ve made her room nice.” It was very bright and original. “You did a tree!”

“ _Nice? Nice?_ ” hissed Seb. “I slaved over this all day while you were swanning about the neighbourhood, probably at the beauty salon and…” He started giggling.

Sherlock shushed him. “No. Sleep time is not giggling. It’s special bedtime lighting and music. Check. And nightwear.”

“Already laid out on the changing table,” Seb said smugly.

“Oh. Massage.”

“Belle! Time and place! Although I was thinking the other day we haven’t –”

“Not me. Bea. Because she isn’t breast fed.” Sherlock lowered his voice on the last two words and squinted as he tried to read his notes in the pearly soft lighting.

“Oh that’s right. Harp on my inadequacies as a parent. I would have nursed if I could.”

Sherlock grinned. “Afraid of ruining your figure?”

“Belle. You know me. When have I ever minded the odd nibble?”

“Inappropriate!” shushed Sherlock.

“Massage with what.”

“Evening primrose oil, to boost her immune system. Hold that book up so I can see. Does this look right? Does it look like the picture?”

“Dunno. But Bea’s enjoying it.”

She was trying to roll over as Sherlock gently patted her back with the oil. “She likes everything. We’re lucky with her temperament.”

“I’m looking forward to soft play,” Seb announced.

“What’s that.” Sherlock was busy with Bea’s clothes.

“Dunno. Just know I want it. Oh. That sleep suit with feet in and lambs on – so delicious!”

“I’ll see if they make adult sizes. Can’t have you jealous. Oh, listen!”

“Aaaah, aaaah,” called Bea, twisting to flail an arm.

“Papa!” Seb cried, hand over his mouth.

“It’s _Fa_ ther,” said Sherlock.

“Oh, I hope it’s not Dad. Or Daddy.” Seb crossed his fingers.

Just then the dark shadow at the curtain solidified and Beamish forced his way in the window and jumped down.

“Oh. I think it was… _cat_ ,” said Sherlock.

“Well. Understandable, I suppose,” replied Seb. “Plenty of time.” They watched and listened for a bit, but there were no more words forthcoming. “Is that it? Pop her down in the bed?”

There was a slight sound, and Sherlock frowned. “Mrs Hudson and/or Frik, are you outside the door?”

There was a pause, then an elderly female voice replied, “No. I was just passing, dears. And Mr Frik’s downstairs, listening through the electric thing.”

The two exchanged eye rolls at this assumption of their inadequacy. Sherlock thought the guard would have been patrolling, casing the joint, mapping out or making escape routes.

“Oh, yes, now I remember. We have to read her favourite story to her.” Seb crossed to the shelves and pulled out an old book. They settled in the matching chairs, and he started. Badly.

“That’s…Italian?” asked Sherlock. Seb nodded, trying his best. He caught Sherlock’s expression. “You try then, smarty-pants.” So they swopped baby and book and tried again. Sherlock thought he caught another noise.

“Frik. I suppose you speak Italian.”

“You two sure don’t,” came the disembodied reply. “Actually, we were just talking, and now I was just thinking about herbal tisanes for Beatrice.”

“No!” Sherlock all-but cried, and Seb jumped.

“What’s wrong with fennel for digestion?” Frik asked.

“We’ll…talk tomorrow,” hissed Sherlock. “Let’s put her down. She’s almost asleep.”

They placed her gently in the cot and tucked the duvet around her.

“We have to leave sometime,” whispered Seb after a while, stroking the tiny fingers gripping the flower-patterned fabric.

As they backed away, Sherlock dislodged a book from a table and caught it before it hit the ground. It was old and well-used, with markers in.

“ _Arnold’s Fitness for Kids: Ages Birth-5_ …” His voice trailed off, and he showed Seb the front with its picture of an enormous smiling Austrian-born bodybuilder-turned-actor-turned politician surrounded by a gang of tough-looking kids. There was no need to turn to the front page and see the name written in it.

“Yis. We’ll start her training tomorrow. Babies love it,” came a distorted Frik. All the two could do was look in amazement at each other. They made it to the living room and flopped onto the sofa, one propped up at either end, one leg tangling on the floor. Seb mirrored Sherlock’s position, kicking his shoes off to rest a leg over and on his mate.

“This is much more tiring than being a City banker,” Seb commented, his voice weak. “But I’m not giving in and going to bed. That’s what puts relationships under strain when a baby comes, partners focussing on the new arrival and not each other.”

“We’re all new arrivals in this relationship,” Sherlock replied.

“Umm. Dinner, darling? We can’t all live off bottles. Although I’d love a drink. But not around baby. A bod from Speedy’s brought up some unsold chicken and salad wraps. Gave me a filthy look, too.”

“Too knackered.”

“Me too. For that too.” Sherlock was softly pressing his foot into Seb, making sweet little circles. Seb soon smiled and pressed back against it. “But I’ll do my best. For you. First, conversation about our days.”

“What have you been reading? Picked up a relationship manual as well as babycare guides?”

“Yes, if you must know. Have you done much digging on the company? While I’ve been doing ‘nice’ designing, oh and make sure you praise the bedroom?”

“I’ve never seen a baby’s room like that. It’s stunning. That do? No. Sorry. I’ve no experience with corporate stuff. But what about a will? It should tell us who benefits.”

“No one can find it. It was removed from the bank vault, presumably to change it. I’m assuming she did. She did draw up the letter for Pa.”

“Hasn’t her lawyer got a record of it?”

“No. Well, he says not. And there’d be no need. She could have written it herself, amended it, whatever.”

“But that means everything would go to her next of kin. Tea?” Sherlock tottered to his feet.

“Yes, please.” He caught at Sherlock as he passed. Sherlock paused and dropped a kiss on Seb. “And not to be alarmist, _if_ her next of kin survives.”

“If she’s known about.”

Seb followed him rather than raise his voice. “It’s mutual collateral. Balance. Could be a message: keep her hidden, keep her safe.” He leant against the table and picked at the wrap sandwich.

“All this might be paranoia, Seb. Maybe there’s a simple explanation. The death could even have been an accident.”

“Maybe we’ll know when we check out the company.”

“About that.” Sherlock poured the water into the teapot. Did John use a cozy or something? Wrap the pot in a towel?

“What?”

“Oh, yes. I thought I’d call in a favour.”

Seb watched as Sherlock took his knife from the mantelpiece and put a hand on the living room mirror, inserting the knife in the back enough to make a slight gap. He caught the letter which slid free and handed it to Sebastian.

‘“ _Dear Sherlock_ ,”’ read Seb. He raised his eyes to Sherlock. “This is from Amanda! Amanda Hamilton! Eddie’s Amanda. Shad Sanderson Amanda.”

“I know. Oh.” He deliberately made his way back to the kitchen and when he returned and placed two cups of tea on the mantelpiece, his voice was steady. “What happened?”

“It was a stupid accident.”

“I see. You, what, tripped and landed in her?” He didn’t take up his cup yet in case his hand shook.

“Sherlock! No, I mean it was one of those awful firm’s official events. Attendance mandatory. I’d had a bit to drink and came on to her. She rebuffed me in no uncertain terms. I tried to apologise, made things worse. And the next day, she came into my office and handed me a gift box. When I opened it, it was an egg timer. An hourglass one. Nice, actually. Good taste.”

“And that…means something, in the City?”

“Oh, she said to pretend it was a time turner. That’s all. Then she left.”

“I’m a scientist. We’re rational folk?”

“A time… To turn back time. As if it never happened.”

“Oh. Clever.”

“She is, yes. I’m sorry, Sherlock. It was before we…were a we, obviously. It meant and means nothing. I don’t know what else to say.”

“Would you have told me?”

“What, all my pathetic post-divorce attempts at lechery that got shot down?” He sat next to Sherlock.

“It’s just I thought you preferred brunets.”

“Oh. I do.” Seb frowned.

“So it wasn’t a serious attempt. Just a reflex.”

“I have no idea. I know there’s only you, really. Always was. Always will be. It’s just how things are.”

Sherlock didn’t have the strength to bring up that overly handsome trading floor banker, Patrick, Seb had been seeing at some point. Not when Seb was there, looking into his eyes and holding his face to drop a soft, sweet kiss on his lips and mutter an apology against them.

“May I read?”

Sherlock nodded.

_I won’t say I can’t thank you enough for telling me about the pin’s worth as I can’t stand clichés and it’s not accurate: obviously I could if I spent long enough repeating the words. As you suggested I made arrangements and am getting a finder’s fee, not treasure trove. And I want to give you something in exchange. You don’t wear a tie, so a tie pin, although nicely symmetrical, would be useless. You don’t wear three-piece suits, so cuff links would be silly. You have a gorgeous watch already and as you wore it all the times we met, I’m supposing you’re not into gratuitous bling._

Seb chuckled and tapped the page.

_I spoke to John via his website and he said you hate Abroad, meaning a luxury holiday in a world-famous resort or hotel is not a good idea. For some reason I can’t see you appreciating a Mercedes, or a state-of-the-art monster-screen TV or sound system. Or a lifetime subscription to Loaded. By now I’ve given up so this is an I bloody O U big time for you to cash in whenever and however you want for whatever – anything – you need. I know you’ll understand. We only met those three times but I think – I hope – I know you well enough that you’ll take this seriously and use it._

_With my very best wishes,_

_Amanda._

 “This is perfect, Belle! She quit soon after that business, you know. Well tried to, before, as well. I took her on as a sort of assistant after Eddie. I didn’t want the bank to lose her before a new bloke was appointed for the Hong Kong accounts. And she did stay on with me –”

“Even after the party incident?”

“Which never happened. Time turner, remember. Stayed for a short time, I suppose until the money came in, and that made the powers that be realise what they’d be losing. She did a lot, actually.”

“PA of the year?” Sherlock had seen Amanda wasn’t an average secretary or assistant. She worked efficiently and quickly to spend time on other things. She’d had a lot of windows open on her PC and a lot of disparate material on her desk.

“More. She has a weird bunch of qualifications. Degree in business and financial administration and a post-grad thing in marketing management then a Masters in knowledge and information science. She said the latter was to help her work better at the others.”

“But she was a PA at the bank?” It seemed strange to Sherlock.

“Oh, she did one of those PA courses, oh you know, at that frightfully expensive pukka business school all the blue chip companies recruit from. It used to be that finishing school. Your mother probably went there. The entire Square Mile gets its front of house from them. The girls might be a little intellectually challenged, but at least they know how to behave around money and power. It’s still a bit of a marriage bureau.”

“Why would she study at a place like that?”

“I’m guessing so she’d never be unemployed and to have a way in to a leading company where once in, she could branch out. Like at Shad.”

“Oh. Clever again. I suppose those sorts of positions in that type of company are nepotistic.”

“Umm. I know once she was able to, she went freelance, doing research and analysis on companies and markets and people. Background for projects and deals, some of which she starts herself and takes to a table, and cuts in on. She’s good at sniffing things out.” Sherlock watched as Seb’s eyes turned misty. That meant finance was involved. “And I’m thinking if Avalon are prepared to sell family shares to Vevey, they’d be just as happy to sell to a consortium of investors with an…interesting offer and plan.”

“Your clients, one supposes.” Sherlock replaced the letter under the mirror’s back. His filing system worked for him.

“One supposes correctly. And as I’m otherwise engaged – literally – Amanda might be able to put something together to offer. For free! _Oh, Sherlock._ I made such a good choice in you. I’m so happy I fell in love with you.” Seb stood behind him and rested his chin on Sherlock’s shoulder. He looped his arms around Sherlock and hugged him tight. “God, you’re gorgeous. Look at you. At us. I’ve got better looking since being with you because I’m so happy.”

Seb actually looked a little tired, after all the designing and decorating, Sherlock supposed, but Sherlock liked him in his stained T-shirt and workman’s cargo pants and messy hair. He pressed back against Seb, and wriggled as Seb’s hands slipped lower. “I still can’t believe you’re mine,” Seb whispered in his ear, nibbling deliciously. “I won’t ever take you for granted. You do know that?”

Sherlock closed his eyes, although he did like the sight of them both together, preferring to give himself up to the pleasure of being adored. “I know what you’re thinking,” he whispered back. “That you want a mirror in the bedroom.” He opened his eyes to see the hit register in Seb’s eyes as they shone a dark blue.

“Ye...ees, but it would need careful positioning. Feng shui and all that.”

“What.”

“Belle! If it’s facing the bed, it’ll drain our energy while we sleep, when we should be restocking it. And also…” He lowered his voice even more. “It’s supposed to the equivalent of introducing a third party into the relationship.”

“Sebastian Wilkes.” Sherlock was dumbfounded. “I cannot believe all the things you read up on. It beggars belief.”

“I’ve also been reading up on massage. For couples, I mean. Intimate massage.” He bit his lip, did the coy look. “And, not to blackmail, but if you call your parents and set up a dinner date for all six of us, I’ll share the fruits of my…studies with you. Tonight. Right now. Both things.”

Sherlock turned to face off with his annoying fiancé. “How the hell is that not blackmail?”

“I don’t want paying?”

“It’s late now.”

“All the more likely to catch your parents in.” Seb slipped Sherlock’s phone free of his pocket and held it out. “Come on. I’ll hold your hand. And later, hold other things.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

“Oh, fine. But it’ll be awful…” He didn’t put the hands free feature on. Seb would only hear his side of the talk.

“Hullo. No, nothing’s wrong. In fact, everything’s right.” He rolled his eyes at this line. “What I mean is I’ve met someone, and we’re living together. Getting a house together. Getting married!” Good news came in threes, wasn’t that it?

“Why am…Because I’d like you to meet.” He gripped the hand Seb placed in his. “Well, your choice, of course. I thought…you might like to be involved.” He shook his head when Seb held out his free hand, trying to take the phone. “Well, please don’t say you weren’t informed when you have to meet with the other trustees to release my funds to buy property. I’ll be sending everyone a copy of the details and the proposal this week. It’s rather interesting actually; two Marylebone town houses and we’re planning to knock them into one. Quite the project.”

He rode out the pause as his parents discussed this. “Would you join us for dinner? To meet the other set of parents, too. Rose and Oliver. They’d love to have us all over.” Probably. “The club? Fine. Tomorrow? Why not. Seven thirty would be perfect.” He was smoothing it on with a silver-plated trowel. “No, please don’t. We don’t want to outnumber them. Poor show. He can listen in via CCTV conference, surely.”

He heard Seb calling his father. “Pa, dinner tomorrow with the in-laws? No, the new ones! Need help wrangling them, remember?”

_“The Carlton Club,”_ he mouthed to Seb who passed this on.

“Cheers. You’re stars. Yes, all fine. Love to Ma.”

Huh. Seb had it easy. “Bye,” they both said together, and Sherlock thought whilst he was on a roll, why not text Amanda. Meet tomorrow. He told this to Seb.

“Right. It’s early, but I’m shattered. Early night? Oh, can I use the shower first?”

“First of what?” queried Sherlock.

“So we freshen up to show respect for the other and don’t just drop into bed, and don’t forget to comment on the room.”

 

“I like it,” Sherlock assured him, once they’d ascended the stairs and walked through the corri-drobe. “All these different stripes of paint and blocks of paper. Sort of patchwork effect, is it? With these…bits of wood and fabric squares? Post-ironic, or something.”

“I’m just flying some schemes and ideas for when we have a definitive room! Are you taking the mick?” Seb was hissy.

“No. I’m just really ignorant about stuff like this. You could tell that by the way the place looked, Seb. Seb!”

“Hmm. I’m going to shower and change, make an effort for my partner.”

“And there’s the flounce,” muttered Sherlock as Seb left. He decided he’d have to persuade Seb back into the office for half-days at least, manufacturing some stock market emergency if necessary. Surely Seb was needed on the trading floor. Because all this Stepford husbanding was beyond a joke.

“The bathroom’s free,” Seb announced pointedly, minutes later. Sherlock sighed and went to make an effort. For his partner.

“Erm, nice boxers,” he improvised, on his return, seeing Seb draped on top of the duvet, reading. “New?”

“Yes. Nice…towel,” replied Seb. He shut his book with a snap. “Oh, come here, you beyond gorgeous thing.” They were both grinning as Sherlock vaulted onto the bed beside him. Seb kissed him. Very thoroughly. “You know how most men turn into their fathers?” he enquired, nuzzling into Sherlock’s ear. Sherlock shivered and nodded. “Well, I think I might be turning into my mother. She wanted a girl, and…”

“Hey.” Sherlock held Seb’s face between his hands and leant close, touching their foreheads together. He sniffed in the familiar lime scent of Seb’s cologne, newly applied, fresh and sharp. He preferred it worn in, and more…haunting. “We neither of us know what we’re doing here. Okay, you’ve been married. But to a girl! This is different.”

“Yes. Two cocks. No waiting.”

“What?”

“No idea. I’m so tired I’m babbling. I know. I’m trying too hard to make things…perfect.”

“They are. We’re together. That’s…unbelievable. And we shouldn’t take the other for granted.” Sherlock shrugged. “We’ll figure it out. I know you like to know in advance exactly what you’re getting into, already have things in place, but…” He was happy to see the familiar gleam return to Seb’s navy blue eyes. “I was promised a massage?”

“Oh. Yes. Half a tick…” Seb sneaked another look at his book, then twirled his finger. “Lie down. On your tum. In the middle of the bed. And relax.”

“Oh, so many orders. I’m getting turned – Is this a new bed?” It looked familiar, somehow.

“It’s _my_ bed. Now _our_ bed. I spent ages breaking my side in. I’m not wasting all that work. It was new. There was only me ever slept on it. And you, I mean.” Seb returned, and Sherlock, head pillowed on his folded arms, heard Seb squirting and rubbing something into his hands. The bed hardly dipped as he took up a position, kneeling over Sherlock’s hips. “I’m starting with the long muscles of the back.” He forestalled Sherlock. “No; don’t tell me all the names. Just enjoy. Feel all the tension of the day eased away and… I’ll shut up now.”

“Burning that book. Brainwashed,” Sherlock murmured, turning languid and drowsy as Seb smoothed his back and shoulders, rubbing his thumbs in tiny circles into the back of his neck.

“This is fragrance free moisturising lotion I happened to have. Didn’t have time to pick up any fractionated coconut oil.”

“Shame,” breathed Sherlock, practically liquid as Seb made long sweeps down both sides of his spine.

“Umm. Doesn’t stain. I might get that kit from Beside the Seaside, mix my own. Sweet almond oil and avocado oil.”

“Have to hurry up, now they’ve been taken over,” Sherlock replied. It came out as, “hhaaaaurrrrmmr.”

“Removing towel…” Seb moaned as loudly in appreciation as Sherlock when he massaged firm hands into Sherlock’s cheeks. “I’ll never take this for granted. It’s beautiful. I might not get to the legs today.”

“I’ll massage you next,” Sherlock offered. It sounded like, “mmaaaaaanneet.” He was too mellowed out to even wriggle as Seb ran both thumbs up his cleft from below, parting the cheeks he was squeezing and releasing.

“Oh, that’s just _delightful_ ,” Seb said on a long moan. Sherlock couldn’t see what he was looking at but could guess. There was a pause, a shift, a scrabble in a drawer, then a long rip and a rustle. He waited, curious, crinkling his nose at the different, thick mineral scent released by Seb’s application of petroleum jelly. Which he used to…coat the fingers of the…latex gloves he’d donned? Or so Sherlock thought, at the first cool, sheathed slide along his crack, then the soft, blunt slip at his hole.

“Murmmm?” he asked.

“Umm,” came in reply. “Came across them in your kitchen lab, and couldn’t resist. For that saucy, illicit probing feeling. Oooh, you’re tighter than usual. Been a day or so. But you open up so nicely. So well.” He finished relaxing the muscle and pushed in. Just a tad. Enough to make Sherlock moan long and loud in reaction. “Oh, _Belle_. Look at you. You were born for this. I wish you could see this, you just relaxing onto me, letting me plunder you. _Take_ you.”

Can’t really help it, thought Sherlock, drifting, at ease on the delicious tide, which was as kinky-feeling as Seb had said. Medfet. Huh.

“Don’t go getting any ideas about a speculum,” he warned, and it came out clearly enough for Seb to catch and laugh at. Even Sherlock’s erection, growing in tandem with the soft, ceaseless swirling and ever-increasing circles of stretching, wasn’t insistent or nagging. Just inevitable and building, slowly. Perfectly. He could have remained like that for days, he thought, loving how just as he started to dissolve into the sensation, it would ramp up just a notch, taking him with him, like he was an instrument, like they were attuned…

The angle and the position shifted as Seb lay down mostly atop him, weaving his fingers into Sherlock’s curls and biting at the back of his neck, making a concert of all three movements. This was so lovely. The tiny nips got harder as they went on, and he liked it. Like the thought of being marked by Seb. Seb who was whispering sweet somethings in between bites, his nose sticking in between the axis and atlas, his breath warming and softening and making Sherlock –

_Fall asleep._ He must have: he was conscious of waking in the fourth different place in as many days. His brain scrambled to catalogue them: his room William College; Seb’s set William; living room; John’s no their room. _Him and Sebastian._ He failed to hold in a gasp as he turned, could have been hours later, to see Seb sitting up, moodily eating some sloppy desert and ignoring him.

“I am so sorry. That was awful. I can’t… What are you…” He couldn’t even finish.

“Me? Oh yes, me. Who’s here. Yes. Oh, I’m turning to food for comfort, instead.” Seb crammed in a big spoonful of the mousse.

“Seb. Please.”

“Oh, you didn’t drive me to it. Not exactly. I had to get up for the early-morning feed.”

“Doesn’t the nanny do that?”

“Yes. We had quite the kitchen confab.” The spoon scraped noisily at the bottom of the dish. From Speedy’s, Sherlock noted.

“Mrs H, too?”

“No. Beamish. Your ears must have been burning. If you weren’t asleep.”

“You’re too good at massaging. Got me too relaxed. And what you did would’ve cured hiccups, if I’d had them.” He fancied the frost was melting a little. “I’m an oaf. I should be punished. And I’ll make it up to you.” He tried a winsome little smile and pushed his head into Seb’s lap. Seb tried to remain stony and dripped a splat of chocolate mousse down on to Sherlock’s mouth. Sherlock deliberately didn’t lick it clean, just stuck his tongue tip out to taste it.

“Done your teeth, I suppose,” commented Seb.

Sherlock amped up the _I’m sorry_ gaze through his lashes, and with a tutt of annoyance, Seb set down the dish and slid flat, flattening Sherlock as he licked a huge swipe of his tongue over the chocolate. He couldn’t help a grin after as he rubbed his nose against Sherlock’s. His kiss was sweet and sugary, making Sherlock chase the taste and the rush.

“I love your bed,” he whispered. “These curved bits are designed just right for me to clasp when we rut, aren’t they?” Sherlock demonstrated, clutching the bed head.

“Lazy sod. I suppose you think the sugar’s given me a new lease of life. But I don’t want to penetrate you,” Seb said. “It’s not that I’m too peeved. Too peeved to penetrate. Too peeved for peen. I just want to abstain from it for a while, then when we do, it’ll be all the better.”

Sherlock couldn’t stop himself eye rolling. He’d burn that book or magazine or whatever when he found it. A tiny glance showed him it wasn’t on Seb’s side of the bed with his stuff. And then it hit him. He was sharing a room. A bedroom. No, a flat. Together. Not him staying with Seb or Seb staying with him. They were…

“Don’t freak out. Breathe, Belle.”

“Am not,” Sherlock gasped. “Am.”

“Are. And good.” Seb breathed in long and deep, to get Sherlock to copy him. When Sherlock nodded, _okay_ , Seb kissed him, slow and sure. He wriggled, and Sherlock interpreted the _remove my boxers_ signal. He did and closed a hand around Seb, just as Seb grasped him. Had he been erect all that time, in his sleep? he wondered. They stayed like that, lazily, drowsily, kissing, making identical tiny movements, in no hurry to come, until they could delay the inevitable no more. Seb sucked harder on Sherlock’s tongue, changing the pace, making Sherlock wiggle. Seb turned away to grab at the tube of gel.

“Hand,” he commanded, and Sherlock held his hand out, to receive a squirt of the thick gel. Seb threw the tube aside and rubbed his hand against Sherlock’s slightly, sharing and warming the thick film of lube, making it thinner and more malleable. In concert, in smooth symphony, they slipped their hands low, and a moment’s wordless wriggling and negotiation was all it took for Seb’s hand to grasp the base of their cocks, clasping them together, and Sherlock’s to work the heads.

“Like being back at school!” breathed Seb on a long sigh of delight as he squeezed and Sherlock teased.

“Really?” Seb had obviously enjoyed his time there.

“Wish you’d been…” Seb brought his free hand up to fold around the back of Sherlock’s head, that and his weight on top of him holding him close. Sherlock’s unoccupied hand dug into Seb’s hip. “You’re going to come first.”

“Really?” said Sherlock again.

“Umm. Come so hard for me. I love that. Love you all over me.” As Sherlock dug his head into Seb’s shoulder in reaction to the sensations and the words, Seb grinned and continued, “Love it when I’m inside you too. You’re tighter than any schoolboy. You squeeze so hard when I make you come. And the sounds you make for me. No one makes noises like that. Only you. Only for me. Oh, you’re close. So’m I.”

Unable to reply as a cross between a gasp and a cry was torn from him by the weird mix of Seb’s hard pumping and his own pressure to the stupidly sensitive head of his prick, Sherlock shook as the hot liquid rush of cum was dragged from his balls to spurt free. All over his stomach and their hands and Seb’s body too. Seb pushed back to free himself, enduring Sherlock’s tight clutch at his sides as he pressed hard, rubbing desperately against Sherlock while coming as hard as Sherlock had seconds before. He didn’t stop until he’d milked himself, wrung himself dry, it seemed, aided by Sherlock at the little death throes. He collapsed, his heart right on top of Sherlock’s, who was startled to feel them both beating in unison. Sherlock shoved until their faces were aligned enough to kiss, all sweetness and tenderness after that breath-stealing ride.

Eventually Seb slipped a hand out for Sherlock’s discarded towel, swiped at them both, and five minutes later, it seemed, it was morning, with Sherlock having no memory of having fallen asleep, no knowledge of when the all-enveloping cloud of contentment and companionship and closeness and caring became sleep. But morning it was, and parental responsibilities and duties and them sitting still bleary-eyed around the kitchen table, letting Beatrice’s happy chirps and coos animate them, and taking turns feeding and patting her as the other had breakfast.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

“Dunno if I like seeing living beings in cages like that.” Seb gestured at the square with its mesh sides. “She wasn’t in one in her old place. Had the run of the place.”

Sherlock didn’t bother pointing out Bea couldn’t even crawl. He was just happy the flat was less frantic today.

“Just to try.” Frik had set up Mrs Turner’s grandson’s old playpen. “Why wasn’t she?”

“Dunno?”

“What was different there?”

“At the Ritz? Lots!” Sherlock could see Seb was lost at the manny’s question.

“When you entered her room.”

“ _Suite_ ,” Seb corrected Frik, scandalised.

“What did you do?”

“They gave us… Oh. We had to out these hospital slipper things over our shoes,” Seb told Sherlock. “I thought it was because of the carpet. Aubusson,” he clarified.

“Exactly. So unless you make everyone who comes in remove their shoes…”

“What? This isn’t Notting Hill!”

“Or wear slip-over covers on their shoes…”

“Or St. John’s Wood.”

“Your daughter can’t be down on the carpet.”

“Look, Beamish likes it,” Sherlock pointed out, watching the cat inside the pen stretch in a bar of sunlight, his head on Bea’s ragged, lumpy orange toy.

“Inoculations,” Frik began.

“He’s not really our cat,” Seb explained.

“Your daughter’s,” Frik continued, teeth gritted.

“Oh. That envelope there’s what the lawyer gave me. It has her baby bulletin. Sherlock, where’s the safe, by the way?”

“I’ll…show you later.” Sherlock needed to remove his cache of memorabilia before he revealed the hollowed-out patch of floor space near the fire. “And Beamish should probably have a tag chip.”

“And actually, we recommend that children…” Frik couldn’t continue in the face of Seb’s shocked look. “Which is my day off? I get one a week.”

“Which…would you like?” Seb was good with people, Sherlock recalled.

“Thursdays. We’ll need another guard to cover.”

Although Sherlock sort of wondered why Thursdays, he was more interested in Seb who seemingly found Bea’s toys and books more fascinating than the markets, despite Sherlock, at the desk, having the Dow-Jones open. Seb had said immediately they got together he wanted children, that he hadn’t before, but did now. With Sherlock. Sherlock relived that night, the garden, the moonlight, and their conversation, the honesty that had been given, and asked of him. How could he couldn’t concentrate on catching up with his website, never mind his research, reading up on the young right-wing politician Chiara had suddenly married in the ’80s, in some parallel of her parents’ relationship. He forced himself to look for patterns, motivations. Had she been trying to recreate their story? No use. Not with Seb stretched out on his back, cradling Bea on his stomach and singing a song about a brave City pirate. He had to join them.

“You know, we have to stop this.” Seb looked over at Sherlock and frowned, not following. “I can’t work, not with you two,” Sherlock continued. “Just wondering if you were planning on ever going back to the bank?”

“I’m still on leave!”

“How did you leave things? You must have things you were in the middle of that need clearing. Oh, and that deal about the university spin-off products you were putting together?”

“See previous, Belle.”

“We have to focus on the case. For her sake.” _Her_ who was currently throwing herself down on them both, playing trampolines and giggling about it.

“How about just go in today and see how things are? Arrange your schedule for working more from home as well?” Seb looked mutinous. “And we could probably do with the money. I think working part-time might do it. If we both finished early afternoon…”

“You, the champion of work-life balance? That’s…”

“Oh. Have I…grown up?” They clung to each other. “You could probably pick up information at work that might help.”

“Or amongst my contacts. Now, where can I go to gather business information?” Seb seemed to be asking Bea, asking by blowing on her tum, but another female voice answered: “The Rialto.”

“Mrs Hudson?” Sherlock stared.

“You know, ‘What news upon the Rialto?’” She looked down at the three of them and giggled. “Oh, you remember, Sherlock. That play you and John took me to see, so I could see that nice man from the television. Lovely, it was.”

“And more or less correct – I’ll go to the Exchange!”

“Oh, Exchange Square. Broadgate. Really? Isn’t it full of…bankers. Oh.”

“Investment bankers. My people. No gabardines in sight. Hey!” Seb protested as Frik, backed by Bea’s godmother, snaffled Bea from him.

“Exercise time. Then this little lady needs to go shopping.”

“Wow. The life of a Chelsea girl. So young.”

“And the wrong district.” Sherlock shook his head. “Twice. The Ritz is in Mayfair, and we’re in Marylebone.”

“Oh, don’t split hairs. We’re all neighbours, here in the City of Westminster. And her Granny’s an original Chelsea chick. Belgravia, to be precise. Cadogan Place, if you must know.”

“Oh, of course. Even swankier than where your parents live.”

“Oh, much better. Five-floored Georgian townhouse in SW1? Garden? Terrace? I should cocoa.”

“We’ll have to move. Can’t have our little girl slumming it.” Beamish opened one eye at their stupid sniggers. “But seriously, Seb, Beatrice might be, well, _rich_.”

“ _Seriously_ rich,” Seb corrected. “I don’t care. I just… Whoa. What did I say?”

He did look pale, Sherlock judged. “Is this it? What growing up is like?” They clutched hands, still lying flat on the carpet, to scramble up at the approach of Danny and Mrs Turner.

“Gran can help.” Danny blushed and turned away. “With your politician. Sort of.”

“Great!” Seb clapped his hands together nosily. “Right, Sherlock?”

“Er, yes?” He led the tiny lady, rouged and powered and scented, her suspiciously deep chestnut-brown hair curled for the occasion, to the desk and seated her. He took out his notebook and fanned through the papers Danny had given him yesterday. “You have some facts about Jack Avery?” He couldn’t see how…

“Oh yes, plenty. Here.” And a file was tugged free of a shiny black handbag. “I know all about him and his Westminster City Council shenanigans. Conservative councillor for Knightsbridge and Belgravia ward and leader from 1978 on, then Lord Mayor of Westminster.” She nodded, folding her lips in on themselves, making the newly applied cherry red lipstick stand out.

“Gran still helps with our ward. Marylebone High Street,” Danny added as Sherlock looked blank. “Each ward elects three councillors. Gran works for Mrs Jenner.” Sherlock shrugged.

“Sherlock!” Mrs Hudson admonished. “You must know the WCC is the local authority that shares power with the Greater London Council! I remember when we were three borough councils, and Marie used to help right back then when the wards were different. Baker Street was a ward. She’s always been an activist, you know.”

Sherlock didn’t really think stuffing envelopes for Tory councillors in a Tory seat, probably to get out of the house during an unfulfilling marriage, was activism. He looked to Seb for help, but Seb had gone. Bastard. “So Jack Avery, married to Adele d’Avalos, wasn’t a government politician. A local politician. Right. And these…letters and reports are…”

“It’s at audit now. What he did. To get the marginal seats into safe seats and keep Westminster Tory. I’m a Tory, same as Martha, and proud, but this sort of thing gets us all a bad name. We should win fair and square. Oh, I’m not saying he didn’t do good, ’specially in his early days. All that Clean-Up campaign… I remember the streets before. My daughter, Danny’s mum, was in the Schools Brigade, keeping the litter down. And he paid out of his own pocket for emergency rubbish dumps during the strike. The Winter of Discontent.”

“And Soho!” chipped in Mrs Hudson, unseen in another room. “He shut down pornographers without licenses!”

“And ‘Say No to Drugs,’” Mrs Turner added. To be met with silence.

“So he…” Sherlock’s head was spinning.

‘“Houses for Votes.”’ The way the woman said it, brown eyes stony, suggested it should mean something. “It’s all here. All the information that was sent to the District Auditors. I mean, if the election result was rigged, our nice Mrs Jenner could have had her seat removed!”

Sherlock envied Danny being able to snigger at that.

“Well. He was horrified at the small margin in ’78 and the thought of Westminster going Labour for the first time ever and persuaded all the marginal seats to vote Conservative in ’82.”

“How?”

“His ‘Stable Communities’ policy. Secret and all. Selling off council houses in those wards in exchange for votes and focussing all council services on them wards too.”

“Oh, Marie exaggerates. I remember it being hard to get the streets round here cleaned or repaired, but…” Mrs Hudson came and joined them, slipping biscuits into Danny’s and Sherlock’s hands. “She says it was like Stalin!”

“Well, Avery removed anyone from those doubtful wards not likely to vote for the Tories! Homeless, people in hostels, students even. Shuffled ’em into safe wards. In disgusting conditions. Tower Blocks. Re-housing. Providing housing. With asbestos! For all he was chair of Westminster’s housing committee. We won by a landslide, and he’s made a CBE. Labour councillors referred this to audit.”

“The Audit Commission’s District Auditor. And they’re still investigating?” Sherlock was skimming the papers.

“Squashed flat in 1986. It looked like the end, but they kept on, trying. Then a new bloke found his policy illegal in ’96, and the High Court overturned that on a loopy.”

“I see.”

“Then there was another go, look, to make him liable. That’s still being looked at.”

It looked to Sherlock like the commission was stalling. “1986. So long ago. Why is that year familiar?”

“Prince Andrew married Fergie,” Mrs Hudson offered.

_Married_ … Sherlock jumped up to look at his genealogical tree. 1986 – Chiara D’Avalos Avery had suddenly married Peter Vincent, one of Thatcher’s Bright Boys, a rising star in her new cabinet. She didn’t look very bright in the photo, awful fashions notwithstanding. Neither did he, for all he looked fashionable and foppish, even. They’d been married for ten years, although not living together for a lot of that, it seemed. And 1986 was the year the still-young Chiara had started the D’Avalos Foundation, her life’s work, with family money, of course.

“May I keep your papers? Just until I get scan them?” he asked Mrs Turner, slowly, his brain whirling, processing.

“Scan is putting them on the computer, Gran. Not the papers – just like a photo,” Danny murmured to the woman.

“And here she is!” Would Bea always have someone on hand to announce her, Sherlock wondered, imagining her throughout life with pages and heralds, not just her godmother. “Really to go shopping! Needs a proper pram, she does!”

“We’re dropping them off.” Seb looked ready for the off. “Thank you so much, Marie and Daniel. I don’t have to ask you to keep all your work for us on the down-low, both of you?”

“That means _secret_ , nan,” whispered Danny, preening a little.

 

And just as before, Sherlock’s focus was no longer so laser-sharp, with this interruption and having to soothe Bea in the cab. She didn’t seem to like going in vehicles. He couldn’t even discuss his thoughts on the Avery story and any connection to Chiara’s marriage.

“You’ll be all right?” Seb asked Frik for the third time. “All the bumf for the accounts is sorted out and you know the corporate code for a cab if you don’t want to pay and get a receipt and –”

“Seb. Making a Scene,” coughed Sherlock. It was how his mother had stopped dead any possible display of emotion on the horizon. He felt both Frik and Bea were glad to wave them off.

“I hope they don’t get those awful ripped jeans that are all the rage,” said Seb, biting his lip. “They don’t do anyone any favours.”

Sherlock understood the displacement. “They’ll be fine. Can’t you reply on him?”

“Yes, of course! But she’s ours!”

“Come on. Out and work your magic.” And it was almost like magic, Sherlock thought, or at least a transformation. He saw Seb sharpening up before his eyes as he breathed in the oxygen of Bishopsgate, the heart of the City. Seb stopped to check his appearance in the glass and silver of Broadgate Tower.

“No pocket square,” observed Sherlock.

“Or cuff links. I’m not really in the office.” Seb tapped his nose and Sherlock tried to decode the City of London semiotics of grooming and dress as he’d once studied the arcane, Masonic symbolism of the buildings and streets themselves, when he’d haunted them after…leaving Oxford. They walked under the Exchange building’s suspended steel-and-glass structure, this cut-through the complete antithesis of the ivy-covered archways between quads at college, even if the re-used of bits of the railway station was supposed to blend old and new. And of course, this square was not a quad at all. Couldn’t be, with the station at one end and the towering bulk of the Exchange at the other, continuing the then-and-now theme.

“I hate these C and B spaces,” Seb said, indicating the ubiquitous wine bar in pride of place in the repurposed railway carriage, its monogrammed sunshades fluttering over the outdoor terrace tables.

“You mean you’re not going to join your loud-voiced, loudly dressed banker chums for lunch?” asked Sherlock.

“Mate. You don’t understand how this works, the order of things.” Seb shook his head sadly at Sherlock’s ignorance. “Only juniors in there, yelling up a storm, ordering the overpriced bar menu dishes and playing quickest on the draw to slap down the plastic. I’ll just breeze through, see and be seen, but the real money and power’s brown-bagging it over there.” He swung his paper bag at the top row of the wide stone steps on the opposite side of the square leading down to the lawn in the centre. “Throwing shade under the shade. Well away from the fountain. All that Japanese calm and Zen of the water rushing over stones – hell on nervous old bladders. I think I see Sir Alan. He’s wearing a purple tie: means he’s working in debt securities today.”

“Well, I’m not of the inner circle.” Sherlock grinned. “Literally. I’m meeting an attractive blonde in a restaurant on the outer edge just there, beyond the water.”

“I know. Amanda. You can’t make me jealous.” Seb stuck his tongue into his cheek, making a bulge.

Sherlock indicated the rows of people. “But why is everyone staring at the lawn? There’s nothing there.”

“They’re all hoping there’ll be bikini croquet again.”

“Really? City boys in bikinis? Sounds scary.”

“No, dolt. Dolly birds promoting something. Bikinis and cowboy boots and Stetsons, the last lot had. Some Square Mile bash or other. Right, I’m off. You’ll…”

Sherlock’s reproving face stopped the concerned questioning. He saw Seb wave to someone. “One question. Did I learn the network thing from you or you from me? Actually, a second question. Which political party is red and which blue? I feel I should know. Or is one orange.”

“ _You’re_ orange,” Seb retorted, squeezing his hand as they set off. He left Sherlock near the row of eating houses, and Sherlock watched Seb stroll on, brown bag in hand, past the giant statue to walk casually by the terrace tables, varying his greetings and time allocated to different groups lunching there before skirting the centre lawn and making for the steps, ending up more or less where he’d started, but now beneath the row of trees separating the steps from the building. Like school, thought Sherlock, shuddering at the cliques and rules.

He was seated in the cordoned-off section outside the Italian restaurant and realised he was close enough to the railway station to train-spot through the glass screen, should he so choose. Why would anyone do a thing like that? Studying his notes, he didn’t see anyone approach, and so the female voice saying his name had him looking up, then standing.

Hair salon-blow-dried that morning to lie smooth and long, tucked behind her ears. Shorter than before. (Cut recently, but not that day.) Minimal perfume and makeup and accessories (not out to impress), pale lipstick (to minimise large mouth). Features all too big for the face, but work together. Clothes smart-casual, trousers not a skirt and a simple nautical-looking top not a blouse (to show she’s not working). Letting the bag and shoes do all the work for her. (Clever.)

“Sherlock.” She smiled, and her pretty blue eyes shone.

“Amanda.” He smiled back.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

“So, first a chain coffee shop for breakfast.”

Sherlock waved back the waiter to seat her himself, frowning at her words.

“Now lunch at a franchise restaurant. I bet our next meeting must be tea in a department store café.”

“Oh. I was…in the area. This is the best the square has to offer. Is it giving you déjà vu?”

“From when I worked around here? Not exactly. It’s like a Yorkie. ‘Not for girls.’” Amanda pointed a breadstick at the other restaurants, then the steps. “How many women do you see?”

“Oh.”

“Quite. Stuck out right in the glare of the sun on the bit of the steps near the water, or on the wall of the pebble-bubble waterfall. Where we, they, rather, are the target of remarks comparing us to the Broadgate Venus.” She twisted into an approximation of the huge, mostly nude five-ton reclining bronze statue which managed to look voluptuous and prim at the same time.

“Oh again. I didn’t –”

“Oh, it’s fine! More than. Truly. I’m so pleased to meet you and see how I can help, what I can do.” She giggled as she reached for her water glass. Sherlock remembered the sound from their last brief meeting, so different from her defensiveness and her hysteria at their second encounter. “I’m so glad it’s sooner rather than later. I had this vision of the future, me in an old folks’ home, and you busting me out to replay my debt to you, like some geriatric version of Murdoch being sprung by Face for a job. Oh. And of course you’ve never seen the _A Team_. So don’t know what I’m babbling on about. Sorry.”

She beamed her big smile at the waiter angling the sunshade over them, although the sun didn’t call for it.

“Before we start,” she began, once they were alone, “there’s something I want to mention. I didn’t say tell you, as I’m sure you know already, but I’d like you to hear it from me.” She ticked her fingernails on the table top, and Sherlock was surprised that he wanted to put his hand over hers, to quiet it.

“Oh. Yet again. Yes, I do know about Sebastian what, lunging at you on the dance floor.”

“What? I wasn’t even thinking… Wow. If I had a quid for every City banker who thought secs, as in secretaries, was spelt SEX, I’d…never need to get change for the parking meter again. What made you think of that? No; I met your brother. Well, I say met. He –”

“Kidnapped you.” Sherlock felt his heart beat slow and hard as he looked at her steady gaze. They both drank a little wine.

“Abducted, I think, technically.” Amanda shrugged. “You did warn me he tended to interfere. And I did heed your warning. Oh, I wasn’t bundled into a car boot, just ‘helped’ into a back seat. I tried to be Anita Blake – and you don’t read those, of course – and work out which direction we were travelling in and how long we’d been on the road, so I could pinpoint the location.”

“I’m…” He shook his head. She was making jokes, but he imagined…

“It was a warehouse. An empty warehouse. He arrived annoyed, really pissed-off, that he’d been delayed en route.”

Sherlock snorted wine down his nose. “What did you do?” he gasped.

“Oh, I had my book in my bag, so I found a chair, had a little sit-down and read a chapter. Then when he turned up, I asked where I should send the bill for my time. And said he should stop hiring women by the hour. Well, I was irritated.”

“It’s not even his department.”

“Well ‘treasure’ found belongs to the crown and has to be reported to the secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport. And as you thought, because of what it was and who it belonged to, the Home Office got interested in its leverage, or blackmail possibilities. I merely asked for a reward commensurate with the item’s value.”

“Which you got.” Sherlock grinned. He knew the newspaper reports had been sensationalist tabloid journalism, that Amanda hadn’t received anything like the amount bandied about, and certainly hadn’t sold the jewel to a buyer. General Shan’s network probably wasn’t totally smashed: Amanda probably wouldn’t have survived the negotiations. At least Mycroft would keep her alive until he had the artefact and after would have no interest in her. He wondered if his brother had detected his hand in the affair beyond the bringing down of the smuggling ring. Didn’t care.

“I got…something, yes.” Her answering grin was huge. “And as I say, I did bear your warnings in mind. I only handed it over when the payment cleared. But that wasn’t all. Your brother gave me a bit of a grilling. Not just him. Had me thoroughly checked out and had a team working to crack me and –”

“If he hurt you in any way, he’ll pay.”

“Oh.” Amanda looked at him in surprise, reacting to his tone of voice. “No, he didn’t. Offered me work, actually. Seems there are special…projects and jobs someone outside the ‘firm’ so to speak would be better able to work on. He contacted me yesterday, actually, to tell me my security clearance was through.”

“What level.”

“All the way to Security Check level. Fingers crossed for Developed Vetting.” She grinned widely.

“Have you signed the statement that you’ll adhere to the restrictions of the Official Secrets Act?”

“This week. Bet you never have.”

Sherlock was a little startled that she knew him so well. They paused to give their order.

“Sherlock, tell me! How can I help you? What can I do? I’m imagining the worst here!”

“What if I were to say I needed a date for a family party?” said Sherlock, feeling a lightness in the face of the woman’s eagerness that had nothing to do with the wine he’d barely touched.

“Oh! I’d get to the gym now, up my crunches. And my squats. And have eyelash extensions so we’re the prettiest couple. I mean, I’d have a lot to live up to.” She gestured at him. “Wait. Do you need a fake steady girlfriend, an _engagement_ even? I’ll have to hit the shops. That would take a whole shedload of clothes…” She looked as if she were going to draw up a list, and he grinned.

“No, I’m fine in that area.”

“Oh. Would it be very awful of me to say, pity?”

He frowned, trying to puzzle this. “Because…”

“I’ll get this out of the way.” She leant forwards, slightly into his space. “The money has made people treat me differently. Either schmoozing me or bending over backwards not to mention it, which puts a terrible constraint on things, and also makes the subject come up more than it normally would. Strange, that.” She frowned. “I say people: I don’t mean you. You’re not…people. You’re singular person. Very much so. When you called and told me to meet you, didn’t ask if we could meet, I thought…”

Sherlock watched as she finished her glass. Had no idea where this was going.

“I’m grateful for the advice you gave me, obviously. And I know you got my letter; the delivery was signed for. And you texted.”

“Yes?”

“I like you. That’s all. We’ve only met a few times, but I think we’ve got on fine. You know awful things about me, the less-than-good decisions I’ve made in my past, and how stupid I was not to see that pin’s value, and you’ve never judged me. And now you don’t care that I’m rich. So, I like you. That’s all,” she repeated.

“Oh. Yet again.” He had a flashback to another time, another person, another similar conversation in another Italian restaurant… Looking into the calm, open and pretty face in front of him, he felt just as flattered this time around.

“Seed hopefully planted, not saying skilfully and subtly, because it probably wasn’t” – Sherlock couldn’t keep back a smile, and it was matched by Amanda’s – “and conversation turned back to business.” She sat straight, attentive.

“I need your professional expertise. I need a thorough background on a company. Everything material, such as its history, finances, plans, problems, potential plans or problems, processes, policies, and anything else I should have thought of.”

“A shareholder valuation analysis?”

“I don’t know. Is it?”

“You seem to be talking about a due diligence.” Again they paused as the waiter fluttered around them.

“And that would be…”

“Like an audit, if one company were to take over another, or a consortium or something were to buy a company up to break it up or float it, make it public. Compatibility with the parent company, checking finances, the legal situation, production schedule and capacity, IT, IP, HR, SS, management, and so on. Stops the M&A failing. Merger and Acquisition.”

Sherlock was a bit lost with the initials. “Sounds like a lot of work. I wouldn’t –”

“I run a fair few. Either for a client or…myself to bring to a client. I have a team. I do know what I’m doing.”

“Yes. Well, I’d need to know any scandal, or secrets too. Oh, the long-term financial advisor died recently.”

“Yes, it can impact on the share price. Is the company already listed? On the stock market here?”

“It’s mostly family owned, and there’s another big shareholder, a Swiss giant. The family might be persuaded to sell more of their shares to a group of investors if the deal is interesting to all concerned.”

“Amazing. That’s the second time Sebastian’s come up.”

“What?”

“Because you’re talking, but I hear him. I want to do something for you, Sherlock, not Shad. I understand you’re probably on retainer for them but –”

“No. It’s something Seb and I…” He stopped.

“My mistake. Not the second time. Sebastian and Seb. Two different people. But he was back with his ex, last I heard.”

“He is.” He didn’t add, me. Not because he was afraid of what she’d think. Just found he didn’t want to. She’d probably guess, anyway. “It’s a case. Although if anything comes of the analysis, you’d be in on it.”

“Hmm.” Now she was taking notes, on an iPad.

“I think there might be something going on, such as misappropriation of funds, embezzlement, theft. I’m not sure how you’d find that.”

“I can compare the projections to the realised, for one thing. I have friends at both Langland and Beacon business directories: I can get scoops, real dirt from them. And it’s about time for this year’s round of interviews, for the next league tables. I bet I can tag along on their visits. I’ve also built up a host of secretary and PA allies in the City over the years. I bet I’d know someone inside the company, could get gossip.”

Sherlock laughed at that. Seb, him and now Amanda with networks all around London.

“And you know what? I could pay someone at this place to fake an emergency and have to request urgent leave and so recommend me to replace them. Or if they only recruit from temp agencies, I’ll find out which one they recruit from, get on the books, and get sent there as cover. Poke around inside. Or send in a plant, if you think I’m too visible, although I can fake a story about the money not being through yet, and that I left Shad too early, in anticipation, and now I need temp work.” Her eyes shone bright blue in excitement.

“Nothing dangerous, Amanda. We think there’s already been a possible murder.” He saw her duck her head down deeper, and it hit him. She was thinking of Eddie. “Oh. Sorry –”

“Timeframe?” The harder light in her eyes matched the cool breeze of her tone.

“Extremely urgent. I’m concerned there could be…more people in the firing line, as it were. Although I have that angle covered.” Because no one would lay a finger on Beatrice.

“Company name?”

“Avalon. I need information on the family too. D’Avalos.”

“Avalon? And you said problems? Really? There’s a huge potential one kicking off at the HQ right now. Just along there, in Bishopsgate. I saw them arriving. I’ll take you to the door. All part of the service.”

“What? Let’s go!”

“You’ve only had salad! Don’t you want a big gooey pudding?”

“I’m not Seb!” He replied without thinking, and saw her eyes widen.

“Oh. My turn for the _oh_. And oh, the tales I could tell,” she said, her tone light. “Him and his love of desserts. He’d attend anyone’s birthday or congratulations or welcome or goodbye tea anywhere in Shad, or probably in the Mile, if there was cake.”

“What?”

“Oh, yes. They say he only has a front-facing office to be able to see the Hummingbird Bakery delivery van arriving in the afternoon.”

“You’re making this up.” Sherlock was almost choking.

“No. I swear. Once it stopped outside, then went on, slowly, like they were looking for the address, and he nipped out after it and crashed the party in KLMP three doors down. Oh yes. Anyone could get anything out of him by inviting him into the kitchen and holding out a slice of cheesecake to him. Then he’s in late the day after, doing penance at the gym.”

“I like you too, Amanda,” Sherlock wheezed, uncaring of his meaning or its interpretation.

“Come on.” She was resigned, half business-like again, signalling for the bill. She paid it quickly and efficiently, overriding his protests. “By the way, New York or Brownie. Cheesecake. If you’re interested.” And I know you are, she didn’t add. Didn’t have to.

It was a little strange, walking along with a woman, Sherlock thought. Amanda looped her arm through his as they strolled, perfectly naturally, not pressuring, and it wasn’t a chore to walk at a slower pace than normal. He could catch her perfume, something flowery, iris, perhaps, but not sweet. He was suddenly reminded of Allegra, although Amanda was much less rah-ified, obviously, less likely to walk into a room and organise it and everyone in it. More likely to stand to one side, observing. He didn’t think he’d ever walked arm-in-arm with a blonde as himself, not in disguise, before. Novel.

“If you refine or broaden the parameters of your request, let me know at once,” she said suddenly. “I’ll be in touch ASAP with any interim info. Do you want to schedule point-of-situation meetings? Video or phone conference would work. I trust your e-mail is secure.”

“Amanda. Don’t do…anything at the company without running it by me first. Promise.”

“You’re the boss.” He did like her wide, broad smile, he decided. “Avalon’s just down there, Sherlock. Can you see the protesters? Whatever it is, it’s in the early stages. They were arriving when I walked this way earlier.”

“Oh yes!” There were a few people setting up tables or something.

“I’d guess it has to with animal rights. They must be activists. Against testing on animals. And I see what they mean: Avalon just took over that all-natural no-cruelty company, promising to incorporate their know-how, and now they’ve closed its seaside plant down, transferred the production to one of their other factories and they’re going to be involved in animal testing because they’re going to start selling in the Far East.”

She caught his look. “What? I read the papers. And women’s and gossip mags. Which Sebastian is also fond of, if I recall. Often found having a sit down with a mag he’d pinched from Reception or off someone’s desk.”

“I am taking you out again and you are telling me everything you can remember,” decided Sherlock, wondering when Seb fitted in any work at all between the cake eating and gossip-magazine reading. Maybe he was feeling burnt out and needed a break? “But for now, come with me into this tailor’s and help me chose a tie. I’ve a protest to infiltrate.”

“And I’m paying, boss,” said Amanda firmly, completely unfazed by Sherlock’s request, letting him open the door of the establishment for her.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Chapter Ten**

Did Avalon own the building, Sherlock wondered, making his slow way up to it. Have to find out. It was set a little way back from the road, with a wide forecourt area, a space now taken up with small knots of people and a few uniformed officers and people with cameras. No journalists as such yet, he rather thought. He wandered over to the small wooden trestle table and picked up a leaflet. It was as Amanda had said, animal rights and animal welfare organisations were drawing people’s attention to Avalon’s lies in their claim that they didn’t test on animals. He glanced around, and his gaze fell on a youngish man, clearly a mover and shaker in the movement, explaining something energetically to a group of girls. Sherlock made sure the man caught him looking, then looked away.

He was just replacing the leaflet and wandering towards the building when the man he’d been eyeing came up to him. He was shorter than Sherlock, younger, dressed in jeans and a V-necked jumper, with tousled brown hair, a messy scruff of beard and deep brown eyes.

“Hi.”

“Oh, er, yes. Sorry, I was just –” Sherlock made a gesture, encompassing the area and the people. “I’d better –” Now his wide sweep took in the building.

“Do you work here?”

“Me?” Sherlock snorted. “God. No. Do what? Leave it out!” Too much Estuary? A tad perhaps. He dialled it down a notch. “Closest I’ve ever got to Avalon is when my sister uses their Hair Science range, that one for curly hair. I might have tried it myself. Why would you say that?”

“I dunno!” The man gave a snort of laughter. “Suppose you look, City-like. Corporate, you know?”

“Oh. I’ve just had an interview down there, actually.” Sherlock pushed the tie more firmly into his trouser pocket, still leaving a tail sticking out. He scratched at his hair, leaving it ruffled.

“Did you get it?”

“Doubt it. I’m not… I mean I wasn’t… I dunno.” He shrugged, resettled his suit jacket more firmly over one shoulder and undid another shirt button. “What’s all this?”

“Here.” The bloke handed him a leaflet. “I’m Matt.”

“Simon. Sim. Yeah, I read it. I don’t get it? I thought they didn’t test on animals? My sister wouldn’t buy their stuff if they did. And they _say_ they’re not testing on animals?”

“They’re having to resume animal testing, despite their opposition to it in the UK and US. They deny it, because they don’t do it themselves – they’re paying for ingredients, not products, to be tested in Chinese government labs as required by China’s FDA. Food and Drug Administration.” He pointed to the relevant section in the leaflet, and Sherlock brushed a finger alongside his as he held the paper still and nearer to him to read it.

“Oh, right! But if they’re opposed to it, why start it? Sorry. You must think me a terrible nosey parker or really ignorant. I’ve never thought about this before.”

“Ask away! It’s what I’m here for. And most people haven’t. They have to meet requirements to sell in China and the Far East. It’s commerce. Profit. Trumps ethics every time.” Matt turned to smile at two other curious people wandering up. He handed them leaflets.

“Are you PETA?” Sherlock stumbled over the pronunciation of the acronym, and Matt corrected it for him.

“No. Nor BUAV. They’ll be along later. They take longer to get organised. We’re grassroots. More solution orientated: SRAT. RATS, we get called. Here.” Sherlock watched, his mouth falling open as the man reached into his pocket and pulled out –

“That’s a rat. A real rat!” His higher-pitched voice startled the people nearer to them. The two women at the leaflets backed off.

“Yeah. Imagine poor Vic subjected to these tests.” He pointed to a horrific picture. He shook his fringe out of his eyes and continued, “We’re the Society for the Replacement of Animals in Testing. SRAT. Have you come across FRAME?”

“Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments?” Sherlock read from the paper. He shook his head and put out a hesitant finger to feel the white rat’s fur.

“We work with them, adapt their ideas. They get a lot of funding, work with the Institute for In Vitro Sciences. Ironic really, when the Avalon Foundation gives them grants.”

“The what? Sorry…”

“Avalon has a big foundation too. Offsets their guilt. It sponsors research into bio-medicine, as one area and works in social and humanitarian projects too.”

“Sponsors the arts as well. And has cheap tickets for those who have too much time on their hands. Meaning, not us!”

“Hey!” Matt’s enthusiastic greeting was for the newcomer, a hippie-looking woman, and Sherlock tried not to think her dry hair might benefit from some Avalon products. “Sim, Maz. Sim’s learning all about the horrors of beauty, and Maz is a seasoned campaigner.”

“Well travelled, too.” She thrust a long lock of hennaed hair back behind her head and placed her hand palm-up for the rodent to scurry on to. The rat actually ran up her sleeve and reappeared at her neckline. It sniffed and hurried back to Matt.

“You’ve been away from London. Vic gets like that with funny smells.”

“Have I! I’ve been to Clevedon, to persuade some…friends to join us. They should be here first thing.”

“No!”

By her would-be mysterious air and Matt’s reaction, Sherlock knew this was a big deal. He took a deep breath and tried to get the rat to use him as a tree as he listened.

“Maz, this is about animal rights, not –”

“And a huge turn-out, an occupation, will draw attention to them!”

“But if you mean what I think you mean, that you’ve somehow got those workers to come up here, won’t their protest overshadow ours? Jeff!” He beckoned another man, young, black, being the visible face to a reporter of some sort, over.

“Sup?”

“Matt’s thinking too small. I’ve gone and got us a whole load of backup.”

“From Beside the Seaside,” Matt explained.

“That’s just it – they won’t be Beside the Seaside anymore! They won’t be anywhere!” She shone with the news she was dying to impart.

“What?”

“It was all bull! Lies! Lies on lies! Not only did Avalon not take them over to create a synergy with their organic know-how and savoir faire, it’s not even greenw –”

“And you would be?” Jeff suddenly turned to Sherlock.

“Oh. Sorry. No one. I just got listening and…yeah. Sorry. Sorry Matt. Didn’t mean…” He made a production of brushing against the man as he handed his pet back. “I’ll be off. I’m in the area tomorrow, actually. Another interview. Sodding agency. Er…”

“Come back! Come and see us again. Here, take a leaflet.”

Matt was beaming, despite the tension in the trio, and Sherlock lowered his voice and said, “Looks like you’re camping out here? I could bring you a coffee, in the morning?”

“Yeah, Matt? Focus?” Jeff flicked his ear.

Still apologising, Sherlock left, turning back once to wave at Matt. He headed straight for an Internet café. angry he didn’t have his laptop with him.

Interesting. It seemed protesters at the time the takeover was announced felt a cosmetics giant should not be allowed to gobble up a historical, traditional beauty-products firm known for using natural ingredients from the small Somerset town it was the main employer of. A Victorian, bucket-and-spade seaside town – oh, hence the company name – famed for the minerals on its beach and the plants and flowers of its hills, woods and meadows which the company used in its centuries-old recipes sold in their charming, quaint packages, some of which were collectors’ items.

Greenwashing their image, many dissenters felt. Avalon promised to maintain, to preserve the brand. They had several lines and product ranges, this would be another in their portfolio. Except the continuity wouldn’t be that unbroken:

 _BETRAYED!_ screamed the local headline Sherlock had called up. Just over a week ago. The plant was to be closed, and production transferred to Avalon’s main London factory in Greenford, Ealing. There was also talk, premature, maybe alarmist, of developing the spacious Clevedon site with its nineteenth-century classically built premises, all pilasters and pediments and columns and cheeky touches of polychrome brickwork to denote the workers’ entrances. Holiday homes were mentioned. But the focus of course was on the loss of jobs in the small town, the blow to the heart of the community.

But, what was really gripping was finding himself staring at the face of Chiara, Beatrice’s mother. Sherlock recalled Mrs Hudson saying the woman didn’t work for the family company, preferring to work for the foundation. _Her_ foundation, seemingly. A read through its past and current projects showed she seemed keen on in vitro medical research, eschewing animal testing. And maybe it was the taunts and accusations of hypocrisy, of the contradiction between that and the takeover and threatened changing for the worse of a likeminded company that had forced her out of her, oh, Gloucestershire manor house, down to Somerset to reassure the workers as to their fate. Sherlock paused there. He supposed she had stayed in London, at the Ritz, when work took her to London. Didn’t explain why she’d been almost resident there recently, having the baby there and staying there after. So she’d gone to Somerset and…died on the way back. Oh. He hadn’t…

He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of how recently Chiara must have died. That a week ago she’d been alive, and Beatrice had had a mother. It was awful to read, but he made himself. She’d gone to meet the company director and trade union spokespeople and elected employee representatives, to reassure the community that their ages-old products would be safe, and that everyone would be offered help in finding new jobs within the Avalon group or elsewhere. And found herself facing the workforce who’d got wind of the meeting and turned up, filling the car park. There was even amateur footage of the jeering crowds almost blocking her from getting into her car as she left the plant after the meeting. She managed to push through and drive off, pursued by a few men throwing what? Oh, that bar of soap the company was famous for.

She’d crashed her car on her way back to London, dying at the scene from multiple trauma, head injuries and internal bleeding. She’d been going back to the capital and her daughter. Sherlock knew the last fact – Beatrice wasn’t mentioned anywhere. Actually, there wasn’t much news of Chiara’s death. She hadn’t been high-profile, hadn’t been a socialite, never hit the hotspots, the first-nights, the launches, the parties on the social calendar. Sherlock wondered how Oliver Wilkes had met her. In Portofino, he would bet. The Wilkeses had a holiday house there. Quick searches informed him the d’Avalos family did too.

He knew he was letting his mind range on that, rather than deal with the reality of the death. The accident. If it was. It was…convenient. More so when put together with that Maz girl’s news, which Sherlock thought was probably today’s announcement of the redundancy package for the Beside the Seaside workers. A flat payment: no other job, no re-training, no…nothing. Despite Chiara’s promises. Had the workers suspected? They’d been hostile. Some of them – he replayed the short local news report, paying attention to the handful of men crowding round her car. It was new model, a good car. Not likely to have developed a fault on the road. But could have been tampered with. By the locals opposing the d’Avalos family’s decision, or by someone using that as a good cover.

He printed the picture and studied the faces. Likely to be union activists. Likely to be here tomorrow. Tomorrow – tonight was the dinner! Good thing he had a tie with him. The power of concentration was a small miracle, banishing worry and stray thoughts. Now he was in the cab, however, he had to check in with… _home_. Oh.

“What’s all that noise?” he gasped at Frik.

“Ja. Well, Bea couldn’t settle, so her godmother thought it a good idea to get her friend Tina, an Italian, to read her her stories in her native language? Help with her Routine? They got me to record her, for the future.”

“But –”

“Oh yis. So Tina came with her sister – the entire family make very interesting reading when running a background on. I’m so glad they’re your friends. I’d hate to go up against that network. Oh, and your name is mud for not telling them you’re a father. You’re booked in for lunch tomorrow to explain and introduce your young man.”

“But –”

“Oh yes. Tina and Gina bought some Sambuca with them. Martha and Marie like it. Bea likes the music. And singing. And talking. She’s very sociable. The Routine is in abeyance tonight.”

“But she couldn’t settle?” Sherlock finally voiced his concern.

“I think it was the way her papa spent half an hour reassuring her he was sorry he’d been out today, that he’d bought her a present, that he only had to go out for a little while tonight, he’d call, that he’d be back, that he’d bring her a present, and…” Sherlock rolled his eyes, imagining Seb’s guilt and concern. “And she’s probably missing her daddies. But she’s adaptable. I think anyone involved with you would have to be. No offence.”

“Put her on.” It was later when he realised how stupid that sounded, but for now he smiled at the little la-la’ing noises he heard, her attempts to join in, he guessed.

“Bedtime,” he insisted, firmly. “Go and lie down. Beamish will be cross with you.”

The nanny came back on the line. “Look, we’ll be back soon and –”

“Not you too,” groaned Frik. “Don’t bring me a present, man.”

Sherlock had no time to wince at his behaviour: the cab was outside the elegant, imposing honey-coloured façade of the country’s most conservative Conservative club and he was straightening his tie enough to pass muster with the feared hall porter, that stickler who’d taken Mrs Thatcher’s handbag from her to be returned when she left. Sherlock dashed up the famous, much-photographed staircase to the first floor because he was suddenly curious to see if that rumour about the hidden room off the Gents’ cloakroom, reputed to provide a great service for men in need, was true. He tapped and found the concealed door, pushed it open… Oh. Naturally.

“Great minds think alike!” He grinned at finding Seb cramped into the tiny, discreet bar space made from a storeroom, raising a glass to his lips.

“Way ahead of you, mate.” Seb passed his glass over for Sherlock to sip from. “And look who I found. One more, please, Pa.” He turned so Sherlock could see the male figure bent over, inspecting the bottle’s label. The tall, solidly built man pushed his somewhat floppy fringe free of his eyes and looked at him over the tops of his glasses, blue eyes quizzical.

“Evening, Oliver,” said Sherlock, his grin widening.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Chapter Eleven**

Oliver reached round his son and clinked glasses with Sherlock. “ _Nils desperandum_ ,” he said, waiting.

Seb coughed, and the telepathy of closeness came to Sherlock’s aid. “ _Illegitimi carborundum_?” Oliver clinked again. “City boys,” sighed Sherlock, then coughed as he downed the drink. It was…strong. Did the management leave random bottles they would rather be rid of every day in this cupboard and put the cost onto someone’s bill, equally at random?

“So Pa, monthly expenses are costed at…” Seb showed his father his phone screen.

“Uh-huh. PayPal do?” At his son’s nod, Oliver fiddled with his own phone for a minute. “Everything…all right? Domestic-wise?”

“Oh, yes.” From Seb.

“More than. Lovely, actually,” replied Sherlock, rubbing his arm against Seb’s.

Oliver took off his glasses and regarded Sherlock. “I hope you don’t think I wouldn’t do what was necessary, if I had to. I’d step up, no matter the consequences, be assured of that. Just, I think this is better.”

“Much better,” said Sherlock, and Seb agreed.

“I wish I’d known. I don’t like to think of Chiara alone. She was always surrounded by people who loved her, who’d do anything for her. That’s how I met her you know. She was on the beach, holding a sandcastle competition, on holiday with her maid, the family butler, his wife their cook, her lawyer, all ancient, and an old friend from school. All merry and larking about. They looked like a family. I wish…things had been different.” He looked hard at them. “And if anyone hurt her, they’ll be sorry. You should know that.” He stood straight, tall and powerful. “It might have been only a holiday romance, although that cheapens it, but Beatrice Maria will want for nothing. You can rely on me.”

“We know. It’ll be okay, Pa. We’re working on it,” his son reassured him. He patted him. Such a simple gesture, but Sherlock was moved by it, by their bond. Not that it was good to deceive Mrs Wilkes, of course.

“Where is your mother?” he asked Seb.

“Oh, she’ll be here somewhere. Doing her calm-me-down routine.”

“Really?” He couldn’t imagine that energetic woman deep breathing, for instance. “Yoga?”

“Good heavens, no.” Oliver shuddered. “No; browbeating. As soon as she’s got some poor sod sufficiently cowed, she’ll… Rose! What on earth?” He stared in amazement as the other wall of the small space was wrenched back to reveal the corridor beyond and a small, carefully dressed blonde woman who’d pulled the wall back with a triumphant, “ _Aha!_ ”

“How do you even know about this room? And how…”

“Oh, I was just studying the blueprints the other day, and there was a discrepancy in the sizes of the rooms here and the floor plan. So I wondered what that obviously false wall led to and…”

Seb couldn’t have been anything other than what he was, reflected Sherlock, with two compulsive information junkies as parents.

“Sebastian. Sherlock.” Rose squeezed into the cupboard. “This is so exciting! But I have to ask Sherlock a question about these earrings.”

Sherlock’s, _Oh, I’m the de facto girl in the relationship, am I?_ thought hit Sebs, “Ma! You always ask me about accessories!”

“Oh hush, son. Sherlock. Your mother. Will she think these earrings are trying too hard to show they’re old money?”

Sherlock studied the obviously antique pearl whorls. “Yes. And the necklace.”

“Oh my!” Rose clutched, literally, the ropes of pearls. “Oliver gave this to me for giving him Sebastian!”

 _Don’t you bloody dare_ , said Seb’s glare, cutting off any, _you got the best of the bargain_ remarks from Sherlock. _And don’t you go getting any bloody ideas_ , his raised eyebrow/pursed lips combo added.

“How about knotting them and putting them inside your dress?” Sherlock suggested. “Mother will be consumed with curiosity all evening.”

“Oh. I could…” She did and dropped the earrings into her clutch bag too. “Thank you. Now, Sherlock, I’ve been on your website – and it’s fascinating! – and I’ve been reading up on your DPhil subject of tailored catalyst molecules, and I have heaps of questions to ask you. I just hope you don’t think I’m dumb.”

“I wouldn’t be so stupid, Mrs Wilkes,” he replied. She was intelligent. And shrewd.

“And, yes, I’m pushy and smothering, but… any more news? What we were discussing? A…family?”

“Oh. Yes; Sebastian has…set things in motion, Mrs Wilkes.”

“Umm. News very soon, Ma.”

“Oh!” And they were grabbed again into a hug. The cynic in Sherlock wondered if Seb had kept his mother sweet for years by issuing non-news bulletins of this kind, during his marriage to Alli.

“And Sherlock! Haven’t I told you to call me Rose?”

He didn’t think she had. Well.

“And you’ll say I’m hokey, or cheesy, or whatever it is nowadays, but I want you to know that just because I will always have a special place in my heart for Alli – I wanted a girl, you know –”

“Umm. I’ve got the closet full of dresses to prove it,” muttered Seb and earned a slap on the arm.

“But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room in my heart for you too, Sherlock. And I also want to say we became great friends with the Chamberlyns, now just Alli’s mother, of course, and I’m determined to have an equally good relationship with your parents and become wonderful friends.” She nodded, glancing at Oliver, who nodded too.

“That might not be so easy,” Sherlock muttered.

“Sherlock, I promise to meet them with an open heart, welcome them into the family!”

“It’s not…you I have any doubts about.” He couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Oh. Oh. I see. Well…” And she grabbed his hand and led him from the cupboard. Sherlock clutched at Seb and dragged him behind him. He couldn’t see if Seb was holding Oliver’s hand, but he betted they looked like a strange herd of elephants making for the dining room. Rose had accepted him and was determined to make friends of his parents, but how would she react when she understood her wishes wouldn’t be reciprocated?

“It’s seven thirty.” Seb’s whisper broke into his reverie. “Do you know where your children are?”

“Never mind that. Do you know where your local neighbourhood Italian restaurateurs are?” he replied. “Oh, and we have a lunch date tomorrow.”

“Confused but pleased. Oh I say…”

Two tall, thin figures were seated stiffly at the end of the red-walled, white-paintwork Regency room, the Wellington Room, under the portrait of the big chap in ceremonial dress and medals. I should find out who it is one of these days, mused Sherlock.

“You…did say you’d met, were living with, were marrying a six-foot-one stunner with muscular legs and a massive cock, didn’t you?” Seb asked.

“You know, it might have slipped my mind.”

“Ah.”

“Indeed. But you get a sticky toffee pudding in bed for getting through this. And not necessarily the dessert.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

His parents didn’t stand to greet them, or even smile. They looked furious. His father’s lips thinned, making his cheekbones prominent and the folds of his face deeper as his chin dropped. His half-lidded eyes darkened to grey steel as he stared, suspecting some trick, no doubt. His mother’s apple cheeks tightened, and her famous blue eyes, called everything from sapphire to iridescent, were now the seaside-storm hue he’d first catalogued when he was fourteen. But which sea? Which bay? Tricky one. And no time to ponder.

“Mother. Father.” Sherlock nodded. Bugger. Who to introduce to whom? Who was older? No idea. Sod it. “This is Mr Sebastian Wilkes and his parents Rose and Oliver Wilkes. My parents, Henry and Henrietta Holmes.” It always sounded like taking the piss.

Seb squeezed his hand: his father made no attempt to shake hands, instead hissing between clenched teeth, “ _Sherlock. Is this your idea of a joke?_ ”

“I said,” Sherlock began, raising his voice to the pitch designed to get his mother to intervene. Yes; she was looking around to check if – “This is Rose and Oliver and Sebastian Wilkes.” The surname was said on a bark, a warning.

Now his father rose, and in the next beat Oliver seated Rose, then sat between her and Mrs Holmes. Seb seated Sherlock next to Rose, to red-hot parental glares, then sat between him and Mr Holmes. “Sorry to put the balance out,” he said politely.

“You and your feng cliché,” commented Sherlock.

This was seemingly a no-no. “I will not have that ridiculous talk!” snapped his father.

“Do sit, sir,” suggested Seb, the flick of his eyes towards Sherlock and the slight twist to his mouth showing he hadn’t missed the fact Mr Holmes was wearing the black and double-white diagonal-striped tie of his old school. Sherlock had burnt his, obviously. Although they had employed Seb’s white school tie for… Surprised father isn’t wearing the bluer, he thought, wanting to grin at the missed opportunity: he and Seb could have betted on it. Oh no; the blazer would be too small for him or too raggedy all these years later.

“Oh I know!” Rose said, leaning over her husband to pat Henrietta, who shied away, so Rose was almost stroking one thin black-velvet-clad arm. His mother was in office-wear, almost. “We were surprised too at first. We’re rather conservative. Big _and_ small C.”

“You can be a bit of a C yourself,” Seb murmured to Sherlock, just as the latter was drinking water. Only a valiant effort kept the chokes away.

“But isn’t it wonderful? It calls for a drink to celebrate. We don’t really drink – we’re practically teetotallers, but of course we’ll make an exception on such a happy day! Sherlock, as nondrinkers we don’t know anything about wine, I’m afraid. Can you suggest something?”

“Father swears by the house red,” replied Sherlock, trying to tally the score and coming up with one-love. The hovering sommelier turned to go, halted by Sherlock’s, “But as Mrs Wilkes observed, this is a celebration and that wouldn’t be fitting. The 1985 Château Cheval Blanc, if you please.” All he knew about that wine was Seb had once mentioned its drinking window closed in 2014. Didn’t want him to miss out.

That unfroze his parents, and Rose continued, “Now, first things first. I want this out in the open: I’m American. And you know how we feel about hospitality. Meaning this evening is our responsibility.” A glance at Oliver had him adding, “Quite.”

“No! We couldn’t possibly! You are our guests here!” Mr Holmes almost cried, and Mrs Holmes shifted from side to side in her chair. Sherlock counted how many seconds it took for her hand to make sure her shoulder-length dark hair was still slightly bouffant and curled up and out at the ends.

“We’re actually both full members. I’m not a Lady Associate Member, I mean,” she informed them all.

“Well, that’s lovely,” said Rose kindly.

“Oh, by the way.” Oliver tugged a small book free of his jacket pocket. “I’ve been meaning to return this to you. Sherlock left this at the cottage years ago.” He handed it to Mrs Holmes who passed it over to her husband, who examined it as if checking for a trick.

“You’ve…known each other a while,” he said to Sherlock and Sebastian.

“We met at university,” Sherlock replied, letting his father make what he wanted of that.

“And got together again recently when Sherlock was solving a mystery for Sebastian! Isn’t that exciting! We’ve been discussing his cases for hours. Oliver even said they’re better than Tom Clancy. And he loves Tom Clancy.” Rose nodded. The wine waiter sidled up, and she directed him to Mr Holmes.

“Our feelings on that silly sleuthing hobby are quite different, I’m afraid,” said Mr Holmes once the waiter had left.

“I wouldn’t call detecting multimillion-pound fraud and saving a merchant bank’s reputation silly,” commented Oliver mildly, nodding as he sniffed his wine. “Nor rooting out irregularities into our named chair. He enabled the rot to be cut out from a venerable institution just in time. Well done, in fact.” He raised his glass. “And we can take this opportunity to congratulate the happy couple.” He left a polite silence, in which Rose raised her glass too for the host to propose a toast.

“To erm, Sherlock and ah, Sebastian,” Mr Holmes uttered, eventually, as other diners began to peep at Oliver and Rose with their arms held out to the middle of the table. And so the four older people clinked glasses, and Rose and Oliver enthused, “Hear, hear.”

Yes, Wilkses ahead, not the least for the casually dropped reference to their endowed chair, Sherlock thought. “Thank you very much,” he replied.

“Yes, thanks awfully, sir,” Seb echoed, dropping his hand down slyly to stroke Sherlock’s thigh.

“What do you do, er, Sebastian?” asked Mr Holmes, setting his glass down.

“I’m head of the trading floor at Shad Sanderson. I’m in line for deputy chairman, which I’m making into a special projects sort of role so I can step back a little for a while. Work from home, even. What with planning the wedding, and the renovations, and all.”

“And you, ah, Mr Wilkes?”

“Oliver, please. I’m chairman of Harriman’s.”

“Oh.” _American-owned merchant bank_ , said the glance between the Holmes.

“I’m also on the board of the Centre for Central Banking Studies. I suggest which seminars we should hold on the latest thinking in central bank policies and operations. And I’m an advisor to the Bank of England in Markets. I’m head of two practitioner committees: liquidity insurance to the banking system and management of financial and business continuity crises. I think you had the unenviable task of rewriting my words last month, making them a lot less vitriolic, when your office drafted the Finance Act bill. Blimey! Seem to have given you my CV! Sorry.”

“Your work as First Parliamentary Counsel must be fascinating!” commented Rose. “And I’m so glad for you that they don’t use the full title of Permanent Under-secretary of State. That acronym! Made me feel a little queasy. Permanent Secretary works just as well.”

“Do you work, er, Rose?” asked Mrs Holmes, trying to size her up and finding the grey silk shift dress and minimal jewels and makeup not much of a clue.

“Oh no, dear. I’m a homemaker. I married straight out of school. Literally! Oliver swept me right from my graduation at Columbia to City Hall! There’s a lot of work to do. I’m kept busy.”

Sherlock wondered how much practice the Wilkeses had had at this. Had they rehearsed this? That last sally, with the lovely hint at the size and quantity of the couple’s homes… Seb poured more wine and studied the menu, turning unerringly to the darker blue pages at the back.

“Do you have more children? No? So you’re not concerned about not having grandchildren then, with your son…” Mrs Holmes straightened her large cameo brooch delicately. There was a suggestion of a scoreboard having even up a little.

“Oh, that’s not quite the case. In fact… Well, time and place. And all in good time,” said Seb.

“Oh, boys!” Rose must have felt she wasn’t being fobbed off with empty words this time. “You mean –”

“We have another son. Sherlock has an older brother,” chipped in Mr Holmes.

“Oh yes! How is Mycroft. Give him my regards,” said Seb. His hand fondled Sherlock’s thigh a little higher. Wickedly.

“Seb! Ran across him recently,” Sherlock covered up his gasp.

“Umm. Love to get together again. Wonder if he’d be up for it?”

Seeing as Seb had left Mycroft unconscious and minus a tooth, Sherlock doubted it. That tooth was a prized joint possession of theirs


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Chapter Twelve**

“So you have grandchildren? From your elder son?” queried Rose.

“Oh, no. No. Mycroft is sadly divorced.”

“Oh. That’s a shame. So sad.” A head-shaking Rose didn’t bother mentioning her son Sebastian’s divorce. “I’m sure the right person for him’s out there somewhere.”

“In every mirror,” Sherlock coughed from behind his hand, pushing back into the hand stroking him.

“Ah sole.” Seb said. “Dover sole, if I’m not mistaken. Looks delish.” He nodded approvingly at the waiter in the distance, who could have been carrying the club’s specialty. Sherlock knew if Allegra were there, she’d implore them both to grow up, and possibly Seb to stop unzipping him. “Oh, but we’re drinking red. Still, could always switch to white. I seem to remember this club carries a rather cheeky little –”

“The chateaubriand is very good,” exclaimed Mr Holmes, backed up by his wife.

“Oh, we don’t normally eat red meat. Still, when in Rome!” replied Rose. “Tradition, and so on. Which we respect. Do you work, Mrs Holmes? And may I call you Henrietta? I would so like to. Just I don’t like to presume, using a given name…”

“Oh. Please,” she replied, obviously trying to remember if she’d called the woman by her name, unbidden. “I’m er, well, I’m a qualified lawyer.”

“Oh, I know! You’re mentioned on your husband’s Wiki page! I meant do you still practice after you married, like Cherie Booth Blair?”

“No. No. I helped out a little, at Henry’s office… We thought of endowing a chair! Henry, haven’t I mentioned it before?” This last came out on a gasp, and got a glare as it was delivered in front of the waiter. “We met at Oxford, you see.”

“Oh, so your son is carrying on the family tradition! How romantic! I’m wondering if you got married in the college chapel?”

“We weren’t at the same college, of course –”

“You know, the principal of William just resigned. Just like that.” Mr Holmes snapped his fingers. “No one knows what happened, but knowing you were there recently, I’m wondering if we’re dealing with a repeat of the boarding school and headmaster situation all over again.”

“You know, Henrietta, seeing as we’re talking of weddings, or rather the wedding,” Rose continued, not missing a beat, “We’d like to offer the cottage as a venue for the reception! It’d be so much fun!”

Seb seemed to think so, he was almost giggling already.

“The lawn would take a marquee, and the river looks so sweet, oh and the garden!”

“ _My_ roses,” chipped in Oliver.

“Yes, all right, _your_ roses and not _my_ petunias. Am I ever going to hear the last of that Chelsea Flower Show award! And the mere fact they even had an Amateur category for the first time ever was nothing to do with the bank having a rather large hospitality tent there. Of course.” She smiled, and Oliver sniggered, looking so like his son Sherlock blinked. The affection between the Wilkeses was a palpable thing,

“But Henrietta, I absolutely do not want to push my way in. The last thing I would want to do is tread on your toes.”

“More like two rivals competing for the same tender!” Oliver was still chuckling.

“When you must be aching to host the breakfast.”

“Well, I…we…” The Holmes looked at each other. “I’ve been too busy to think about it,” she finished, twirling a thin finger into the ends of her hair again, realigning the curl.

“Which is why we’d be grateful for your help, Rose,” said Sherlock in a voice as smooth as melted chocolate.

“But the cottage? Too much to ask everyone to make their way there, surely?” said Seb. “Somewhere right here in the very heart of London might be easier for all our friends and family.”

“For the ceremony, yes! But we’d lay on a coach! Such fun to all travel down together!”

“Well. Be that as it may.” Mr Holmes coughed. “This house you mentioned.”

“Houses. Two. Adjoining.”

“Why two, for heaven’s sake?”

“Why not, sir? We need the space. Sherlock is working mostly from home on his DPhil and his cases for one thing.”

“Doctorate? Have you decided to go into teaching, then?”

“I could see myself giving the odd lesson,” Sherlock replied, seeing his parents clutch at the _respectable at last_ straw he waved.

“You, teaching! It would be a dream come true! A fantasy!” gushed Seb, and Sherlock knew exactly what sort of fantasy he meant, and rather suspected his father did. Well, Seb’s heavy-lidded eyes giving Sherlock his patented elevator stare left little to the imagination.

“Have you been here before?” Mrs Holmes squeezed in, perhaps not liking her husband’s snorty breathing or his hands curling into fists.

“No, I haven’t!” replied Rose. “And I have so wanted to! I’m so happy to get this invitation. I have longed to see the Heaphy portrait of Wellington.”

 _The Iron Duke. Of course._ He should have known.

“Since it’s been restored.”

Sherlock had a vision of the Wilkeses, Rose mainly, looking up suitable topics of conversation.

“Because Silva, the restorer, was kind enough to help with our Zandomeneghis, and I’d love to see how his work here compares!”

And then twisting them into –

“But I won’t be brash and embarrass anyone. I wouldn’t dream of taking a peek until the room is empty, I promise. But his work is wonderful, isn’t it?”

And disarming her audience and –

“We have had nothing but compliments since the restoration. The paintings are a total feature of one room in the Portofino house. You must come stay! Come villa with us, as they say nowadays. That would be so wonderful!” A glance at Oliver had him nodding and echoing her words.

“Ma! We could hold the wedding there! Although _this_ place has a Civil Licence and weddings can be held at weekends throughout the year here!” said Seb, who’d obviously been reading the Club literature too.

“You and your love of appearing in the gossip columns!” Sherlock sighed. “But to go back to the houses matter, it would be good to have somewhere to live quietly. Absolutely privately. Not in the public eye at all.” He outstared his father, driving the message home.

“I’m not principal trustee…”

“Oh, we’re having old Sam Lassiter over for supper next week,” Seb informed them. “Show him the plans. Would you like to join us?”

Never mind tennis, his parents were on the ropes now, weak, cowering, and no one had even seen or felt a blow being landed. Sherlock felt there wouldn’t be much difficulty over the funds being released. And Seb got his treacle sponge _and_ custard and cabinet pudding as Sherlock had ordered one and couldn’t eat it. He deserved it all.

 

“Well, that went as well as could be expected,” commented Sherlock, waving off two taxis, from one of which a small blonde lady was still imploring the occupants of the other to come to them next time. He was rather surprised at how smoothly they’d all worked together without any planning. He could see where Seb got his talents from. Maybe _all_ the Wilkeses could be persuaded to work with him if he needed it on a case. Some scam that would be. “Just one question.”

“If it’s am I a member of the mile-high club, a gentlemen never reveals the details of the fight to Singapore during which he –”

“Knob end. No. Why a Romney?”

Rose had insisted they choose a painting from her collection, started by her grandparents and left to her, the reason her sister didn’t speak to her, to add to the paintings Sebastian already had and for them to start their own joint collection. Seb had immediately asked for a Romney.

“They’re easy to copy.” Seb tapped his nose.

“What? Oh. You mean –”

“Ma did the same for Alli and I, yes. Alli chose a Romney, copied it, we flogged it and used the cash as down payment on the house. The house we sold when we split.”

“You mustn’t keep comparing your ex to me.” Sherlock turned away and bit his lip. “I can’t possibly live up. Not being able to paint.”

“No need. Alli can do it as a wedding present. We can use some of the cash on a fantastic honeymoon.”

“Oh.” Sherlock didn’t know how he felt about that.

“Want to walk?” They were already starting.

“Actually, you know what? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you on the Tube. We’ve never…” Sherlock started laughing at the look on Seb’s face. “Never mind.”

“Challenge accepted. Well? Come on! The baby sitter’ll be getting grumpy.”

And of course, at Green Park it turned out Seb had an Oyster Card and was perfectly capable of navigating the two stops of the Jubilee line to Baker Street. And it was a strange sight, Seb in his well-tailored, obviously expensive three-piece suit, cut to look like a dinner suit almost, and soft, thick overcoat, strap-hanging, his face calm and expressionless, approved Tube-style.

“Should do this at rush hour,” he suggested as they got off, quirking an eyebrow. “All that squashing and crowding and –”

“Nose in a stranger’s armpit.”

“Umm. You’re right. Let’s get a second car and a driver instead.”

“Oh, could we!” Sherlock was entranced. “Rose got pearls, real and not cultured, for bringing you into the world. I should get something too for being a parent.”

“In that case, I brought you Bea; I get the present! And I have. The pair of you. That’s all I want.”

Sherlock squeezed Seb’s hand until the bones cracked. “Car? Chauffeur?” he coughed.

“Might as well, amount you spend cabbing. I’ve been going over your expenses – who normally does your taxes? Oh. No one, of course. I can’t believe…”

He was still pale as they got home. So was Frik, exhausted on the sofa.

“What…happened here?” asked Seb, looking around

“Sambuca,” replied Frik.

“Italian restaurateurs,” added Sherlock.

“With whom you have a lunch date tomorrow. All three of you. And count me out. How did it go?”

“Oh, his father wins the award for most traditional, unsympathetic, stick in the mud, stick up the behind of the decade.” Seb indicated Sherlock.

“No, man. Can’t be. You haven’t met mine. He used to give me a head start and chase me over the _plaas_ in the jeep and fire his shotgun at me to get me to run faster and farther. And he had this _renoster_ , rhino, half-crazed, half-starved, chained up, like a watchdog. He’d slip its chain and get it to charge me.”

“Good Lord.” Seb had been on his way into Bea’s room but halted. “Any reason why?”

“I was the youngest of seven boys. He was afraid I’d grow up the runt of the litter.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, one day I was running, dodging the shots as usual, when I thought, sod this. I ran back, grabbed the Winchester from his hands and broke it over my knee.”

“Then he realised you were a man and… No?”

“He threw me out for disrespecting him. I joined up and learnt how to kill. Same difference.” Frik shrugged. Seb opened his mouth to ask a follow-up question pertaining to Frik’s training and his father, but Sherlock frowned him into silence. Some things…

“And Bea is fine. Fed and sleeping soundly. No problems. Sherlock. Come down and see the changes in the basement flat.”

“Okay?”

But it wasn’t that okay, as once he was through the door, Frik attacked him. A hard shove to his torso and a leg hooked under his had him on his arse on the floor, his hands barely breaking his fall.

“What the fuck? If you’re pissed off at having to work late, just say!” He shook his arms out to stop the tingling from the hard jar and tilted his head to get his hair from his eyes. Frik just stood, waiting, one hand extended, moving in the classic _come here_ beckon. “You are joking,” Sherlock decided. “Or gone mad. I’ve had a tough evening, I’ve been eating and drinking a ton and –”

He flew from his crouch to knock Frik to the ground and land on top of him in one hard thud, aiming to wind his opponent, grabbing his knife free of its concealed ankle holster as he did so to hold it at Frik’s throat. His movements were swift and weighted, and he said nothing, just let the knife and his ease with it speak for him. Frik’s eyes opened wide a second before he moved in a savage twist to reverse their positions, all his weight on Sherlock’s wrist, threatening to break it, the pain agonising, unless Sherlock opened his hand and released the knife. It looked as if Frik were about to head-butt him, so Sherlock let the knife drop, also curling economically to bring his other leg up to free his second knife and hold its point against Frik’s back.

“Don’t make me puncture a lung,” he hissed, unable to dislodge the compact weight on top of him, and sliding the point of the knife…to find some strange obstruction. The second’s hesitation allowed Frik to unsheathe the weapon strapped to his back and jump behind Sherlock, his legs immobilising Sherlock’s, his elbows pinning Sherlock’s arms at their pressure points, and one hand making a tight grip in his hair. The other hand held the blade against Sherlock’s throat.

“God,” Sherlock breathed in admiration. “That’s a katana! They’re illegal!”

“Only over fifty centimetres. This is modified to forty-nine.” Frik released him and held it out for him to handle. “And protects the spine too.” He gathered up Sherlock’s knives. “BlackJacks. One with modified grip for a right hander to work with his left! You adapt those holsters yourself?”

“Yes. How did you remove that? Not just from the top?”

“Modified the sheath to flick it from the side at the same time.” Frik paused a moment. “You can fight, I’ll give you that. And dirty. But train, yes? I think you’d like Krav Maga. And you should build anaerobic endurance and stamina with roadwork. And it would encourage Sebastian. He hasn’t been since you two got together. You can bring Bea. There’s a play area for kids. The girl who minds it is okay.”

From his tone, Sherlock guessed the girl was more than okay. He glanced around and was frankly alarmed by some of the weaponry and technology he glimpsed in the room. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he began, “but you’re a little psycho, aren’t you.”

“Hey, thanks, man.” Frik clapped him on the back. Hard. He turned to switch on the monitor, and Sherlock heard Seb’s voice apologising to the presumably sleeping baby for being out so late, and telling her about her Wilkes and Holmes grandparents, and how gorgeous her father Sherlock was. “He really wanted a kid. What about you?” Seemed having beaten the crap out of him gave Frik the right to ask him questions like that.

“I…want Seb. Oh.” He’d surprised himself. “And I never thought about children. But I want Seb to have what he wants. And I love having Beatrice.” He hesitated a second, but he’d wanted to know for some time now about the relationship between these two men. “You’ve known Seb a while. Where did you meet?”

“Lubashi prison.”

“What? Where’s –”

“DRC. Democratic Republic of Congo. Ironically named place, I’ve always thought.”

“What.” Sherlock couldn’t form thoughts.

“Ask him about it, if you like. I’d rather you didn’t though. Bet he’d agree.” Frik slapped him on the back again, even harder. This time it hurt more and less, somehow.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Chapter Thirteen**

“Everything all right?” asked Seb as Sherlock limped slowly into Bea’s room and squeezed next to Seb on the seat.

“Ye…ah. Oh, tomorrow you have to start running again, and when’s that training thing?” He nodded when Seb told him. “We’re all going. Bea too. Apparently.”

“Right-oh.” Not much shook Seb.

“Why is this sofa thing swinging?”

“Rocking. It’s for feeding. Isn’t she perfect?”

“Yes. Very.” Bea was. “More mags? Mrs H been fighting off dust mites again?”

“Umm. Good job she’s such an Adele fangirl. Because have you ever wondered why Adele was the face of Avalon in the Swinging Sixties and the Serious Seventies, but Chiara wasn’t, in the Excessive Eighties?”

“I am now.” Sherlock tipped the soft light a little better to see.

“I think she refused.”

“ _Tatler_?” Sherlock’s taking the ancient magazine from Seb’s knee meant Beamish could jump down from the windowsill and take its place. He placed his paws on Seb’s shoulders and nudged his nose into Seb’s top pocket, and Seb removed a small plastic comb to groom him once he settled down.

“Mummie’s the World.’ Oh, really.” Sherlock skimmed through the feature on girls who were like their famous mums, not stopping at Daphne Guinness, a model and muse in the making like her mother Suzanne, Princess Caroline, as best-dressed as her world-famous mother, or Natasha Richardson, a twig on the acting family tree. The ‘Daddies’ Girls’ subsection showed girls following in father’s footsteps, like someone called Sophie Ward who resembled her actor father Simon, and Chiara, who, bending the title slightly, was seemingly a throwback to her scientist grandfather: she was surprisingly studying chemistry part-time at Imperial College, London.

“And I think she was good at negotiating.” Seb pointed to the small paragraph about Chiara being busy over Bunsen burners rather than basting and blanching on a Cordon Bleu course, or backfilling bluebells as a disciple of Constance Spry, but still finding time to do the Deb thing. She was pictured in a white gown at the Queen Charlotte ball. “Must be how she got her Foundation.”

“Seb. She seems so…decent. Who would have wanted to do away with her? It must have been something to do with the business. Wrong place, wrong time?”

“We’ll find out. We’ll know more when we get the in-depth report.”

“Oh, the valuation. Yes.”

“Due Diligence, yes.” Seb sucked in a breath as Beamish’s claw recalled him to his combing duty. “Hey. Maybe Bea could be the face of Avalon in the Roaring Twenties. The next ones, I mean.”

“Not likely. She’ll be a scientist.”

“A banker,” Seb corrected, scandalised.

Beamish raised his head and looked at them, unblinking.

“Whatever she chooses,” Sherlock said.

“Of, of course. That’s what I meant,” Seb agreed. So Sherlock had to kiss him, then stopped, remembering the monitor was on, and Frik presumably feeling sick. “Bed,” he whispered, helping Seb resettle Beamish and brush his clothes free of cat hairs. Their child would have a well-developed immune system, he thought.

“I’m not tired,” whispered back Seb in a mock whine.

“Good. You can tidy up the living room and kitchen then.”

“Me? Get dishpan hands? I don’t think so. Mags starts ASAP. It’s for the best. More couples split over rows about housework than over adultery.”

“Please stop reading women’s mags,” Sherlock begged, as they went up the short flight of stairs. “And lighten up with Beatrice. She’s picking up on your completely misplaced guilt. They use that against you.” He pretended not to notice Seb pushing a large Hamleys bag under the bed. “You’re a wonderful father.”

“Pa _pa_ ,” corrected Seb. “You’re _father_.”

Sherlock caught sight of a thermos flask and mineral water and a bottle of aspirin on a silver drinks salver on the new, or Seb’s old, highboy. He pointed. “Sebastian Wilkes, you’ve grown up. Time was drunk Seb would help out hungover Seb by rummaging around for that stuff when he got home. And leave him a ready-mixed Bloody Mary too. Now look. Was this going-out-for-dinner Seb helping just-in-case Seb? I’m impressed.”

“Hmm. Dunno about being grown up. Look what I got roped into today.”

A curious Sherlock took Seb’s phone and watched the film. Seb’s voice called out, “Pilchard!” and a man turned round and stopped, to be slapped around the head from behind by…a man wearing a purple tie. A voice, presumably this man’s, cried, “Wanker!” and Seb’s voice informed him everyone knew his bank’s mortgage-backed securities were underperforming. Then Seb cried, “Run!” and things went a little shaky as the two men legged it, giggling madly.

“That ghastly Pilkington from Merrill Lynch. Known the length and breadth of the Square Mile as Pilchard. Now.” Seb shook his head.

Sherlock recalled that tie. “That’s…Sir Alan. The –”

“Banks’s chairman and my fanboy/Godfather, umm. He’s got this new lease of cliché since Oxford. He’d heard rumours and wanted to join in.”

“About and in the…”

“Posh bashing. The Square Mile version of happy slapping. There’s a website for people to upload to their institution’s channel that you need for password for and everything. You have to get all the banks and financial houses in order, with an apposite comment on their performance. Shad’s doing well in the league.”

That Seb was the genius behind this, Sherlock had no doubt. “I love you. Oh.” He stared at Seb in surprise.

“Cheers. You’re not too vile yourself.” But the soft, sweet kiss he pulled Sherlock into and the tender light in his eyes marked the occasion, the first time Sherlock had said the words out loud. “You okay? Need a brown paper bag to breathe into? I’ve got a selection. Spent ages drawing designs on them, writing inspirational slogans…”

“You look lovely.” Sherlock wrong-footed him by not freaking out, and being conscious of their decision to not take the other for granted. “That suit’s a lovely colour.”

“I know, right? How devastating am I in this midnight blue with this Roman silver! Nice tie, you.”

“Amanda chose it.”

“Aha. That’s why you need females. You, I mean. Not me.”

“She’s okay, actually.”

“’Course she is – she’s working for us for free!” And for the second time in the evening, Sherlock was pounced on. He ended up flat on his back on the bed, Seb on top, and grinned up at his captor.

“Oh. Do we still do that, wrestling for top?”

“D’uh. Me then. And that coffee’s for you. Not taking another risk of you dozing off and giving me a complex.” Despite his pissed-off sounding words, Seb kissed him, whispering how turned on he was; Sherlock smelt of the City. Seb managed to loosen and free Sherlock’s new tie with his teeth, and Sherlock managed not to giggle too much.

“Quick version or slow?” Seb asked, stripping Sherlock down to his boxers with public school speed and efficiency and crawling over him, pinning him. Sherlock wrapped his arms around Seb. He stopped Seb nuzzling his slightly stubbled face over him by kissing him, tonguing deep and hard until they needed air. Sherlock shivered as Seb slipped a hand inside his boxers, nipping his neck at the same time.

“What’s the difference?” he asked. Seb jerked his gaze down, and, feeling something under the pillow, Sherlock edged his hand under and pulled out… “Girl cuffs?” They were pink and furry, like something women might giggle over on a hen night. “That’s the quick? What’s needed for the slow version?” Seb’s look made Sherlock slide a questing hand under the other pillow, and find…a freshly laundered but old strip of white cloth: Seb’s ancient school tie.

“A man’s gag.” Seb’s tone was one of pure satisfaction. “We need some _us_ time. And by _us_ I mean me edging you. I promise I’ll only gag you after the third time, when you tend to get _really_ loud.”

He was true to his word. He usually was, thought Sherlock, when he had a second in which to gather his thoughts, his arms stretched taut and straining against the ridiculous pink cuffs he could easily break apart, never mind pick. Seb’s horribly clever and agile tongue on Sherlock’s cock made him arch his back, and he camped this up a bit to make his chest heave and his nipples stand out. Seb loved that, and within a minute was commenting that those nipples were begging for clamps, and that next time he’d clamp Sherlock and tighten them each time he took Sherlock to the edge.

“Love you hard like this,” Seb whispered, his voice a little hoarse. Well, probably a consequence of edging Sherlock to near climax with his mouth the second time. He preferred his hand the first go and to lick and suck after, when more precum was released, his ride easier and tastier. Not many people were as uninhibited in voicing their preferences and lauding the sight and taste of their partner. And just as he appreciated Sherlock flushed a dangerous dark pink all over, glistening in sweat and panting through nose and mouth with the forced, controlled exertion, Sherlock loved the sight of Seb swollen- and shiny-lipped from kissing him hard and blowing him even harder. Loved the dark sapphire sheen to his eyes and the mess of his carefully styled hair. He briefly wondered why Seb liked stripping him naked when he was still clothed.

No time – or energy or brain power – left to ponder. Seb had reached his own limit and was unzipping, not to penetrate Sherlock, but to more or less hurl himself on top of him and clasp his face with one hand and grip the slat of the bed and Sherlock’s bound fingers with the other. He shoved off the gag and seized Sherlock’s mouth, all harsh demand as he aligned their cocks, their hard, flushed arousal perfectly matched, and rutted, making them stimulate each other. Such firm, insistent, brook-no-denial arousal and satisfaction.

The power, so carefully built up and harnessed couldn’t be denied, and Sherlock came in a heavy, bone-jarring, heart-thumping wave the twin of Seb’s, and had to suck in great gulps of air from Seb’s mouth to ride it. God. Seb undid the stupid restraints, and Sherlock’s freed arms flopped uselessly down. He didn’t know if he were hugging Seb or not; he had no feeling in his arms. Seb shifted not to crush him, but remained clasping him close, warm and solid, whispering in his ear how great that had been, how beautifully Sherlock came, how gorgeous he was, how perfect for Seb he was.

“You’re…okay for me too,” Sherlock said on a sighed gasp, enjoying the anchored feeling Seb’s body and its heat and realness gave him. He even liked the prickle of Seb’s clothes and the wet, warm, stickiness of Seb’s spent cock against his hip. He wondered if Seb would make them have showers, freshen up to show respect for their other half. Other half. Like matching rings, some symbolic design? Did Seb wear rings. Probably not. His thoughts skipped and stuck. He’d take Seb next time. Must be his turn. Although nice to have everything done for one. To one. To be so cherished. Provided for. Yet…

“So, no penetration till the big day?”

“Till I’ve made an honest man of you?” Seb heaved himself to his feet and fetched them water before undressing, eliciting a whistle from Sherlock. So considerate. He pushed at his fringe. “Belle.” The crooked grin was in place. “I know that’s not enough for you, you a raging pillow queen with that hungry hole I love so much. Don’t worry. I amalgamated our sex drawers.” He indicated the top drawer of the bedside table.

“Like we’re married already.” Sherlock stretched, long angles and promise made flesh, enjoying Seb’s hooded stare and intake of breath as Sherlock displayed his cum-covered belly and wet pubes for him. He shifted to give a glimpse of his arse. He knew Seb loved it.

“Oh, you little cock slut,” Seb breathed in huge-eyed admiration. He opened the drawer and withdrew a new toy, black, latex, about seven inches long and rippled, the latex mounded into three round bead shapes on top of each other. Sherlock looked questioningly at Seb.

“Three bumps for your rump, as they say. Suck.”

Not a fan of the taste of latex, Sherlock nevertheless licked and tongued the anal plug, getting it as wet as he could and putting on a show for Seb, who uttered a reverential, “ _Christ_ , Belle,” as Sherlock tongue laved the ridges of the three heads. Seb decided it wasn’t lubed enough; he rolled it on Sherlock’s abdomen, coating it in their shared cooling cum. He was inventive. Sherlock sighed as Seb played around the muscle of his hole stroking him slightly open. Just slightly. Sherlock was obviously going to feel the toy and have to work to take it. His stomach muscles flinched as Seb cleaned him with tissues.

“Legs bent. That’s it. You can manage it. See? You’ve taken the first ball. Not your first by any means.” Seb stopped his play and rewarded him with a filthy kiss, resuming his work and pressing higher slightly harder. “There’s the second. The third’s wider. Two inches round. God. You look amazing. Oh yes. Love that.”

That was Sherlock exaggerating, looking at Seb wide-eyed, breathing hard through his nose and clinging to Seb’s neck with anxious arms.

“Be brave. You’re a big boy. Can you feel this third bump? The head tapers wider, really flares, to give more sensation. It’s designed for ambitious power bottoms. You seem so tight! It’s not going…”

  
Sherlock’s moan was indecently loud as Seb pulled the third and widest part free, to thrust it up again.

“There. All done. Snug.” And Seb tapped the base, making sparks kindle in Sherlock’s sensation centres. “I’ll remove it in the morning, very slowly, while you bring yourself off. I can’t wait.” He paused a while, then said, “All right?” This was really him, concerned, checking…

“Oh yes. God, stuffed full. And I don’t mean that mediocre steak. Feels so big. Huge…”

“Are you trying to get me revved up again?”

Sherlock laughed. He probably had been. He settled, as well as he could with the plug, and saw how he and Seb automatically fell into sleep positions, accommodating and allowing for the other, encouraging the other’s closeness. Like married already, he thought, falling into the abyss of sleep.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Chapter Fourteen**

“Come on. Up,” instructed Sherlock early the next morning, after he’d put on a show for Seb, Seb who played and teased as he took his time sliding the toy free of Sherlock, encouraging Sherlock to pleasure himself, pleasure them.

“Belle. It’s you who likes the morning slot. Or hole,” replied Seb, scrunching his face as he used his tongue to clean Sherlock. “I’ve always been more about the lunchtime quickie, the afternoon delight, the five-to-seven appetiser, the night time feast.”

“Enough about your scoffing. And I don’t mean sex. We’re doing roadwork.” Although Sherlock wasn’t so sure he could run.

“Oh. Really? Are you sure? After that?”

 

“We’re going for a run,” called Sherlock outside Frik’s door. He’d no doubt the guard was up and about.

“Aha! Gotcha.” Seb tapped his nose as he watched Sherlock stretch against the railings outside. “Way to evade all that healthy stuff, yes?” He indicated 221. “Secret fry-up in the greasiest of spoons?” He turned towards the closed-looking café next door.

“No!” And Sherlock was off, running backwards, watching Seb.

“Oh! Getting me in shape for the wedding, is it? You brute. After I pleasured you so well last night. And this morning!” He set off after Sherlock.

“You’ll thank me one day,” Sherlock called.

“Spank you, did you say?”

“If you can catch me!”

And in between the intense short bursts of anaerobic sprints, they paused for more aerobic patches, Seb showing Sherlock some moves he’d learnt.

“Bet you’re glad now I didn’t fuck you last night. Or this morning,” Seb was smug as they ran back. He was fairly athletic and strong, and Sherlock wondered about the amount of sport and gym he’d pursued prior to Sherlock coming back into his life. They even managed a bit of a foursome: their neighbours went out running too, they discovered.

They crossed paths with Frik preparing bottles, and Sherlock dragged Seb away, to let the nanny work and not let Seb hang about Bea. “Come on. Need your help with clothes,” he wheedled.

“I need a tie similar to yesterday’s,” he explained as they approached the shrine Seb had built to house his clothes.

“Mia wardrobe es sua wardrobe. That’s the advantage of marrying someone of the same gender. And height.”

“And now I’m imagining you in one of Alli’s stretchy jersey dresses.”

“For fat days, you mean?”

“Seb.” Sherlock made sure he had his attention. “You’ve got a wonderful body. I love it. Now, I might need a shirt too.”

“Cheers. Sure. And hurry up – we can bathe together, then have breakfast with Bea. Where are you going anyhow?”

“I have a job interview in a City bank.” Sherlock turned, to see the full effect of his words.

“Sher-lock!” Seb fell to his knees, arms around Sherlock’s thighs. “Ohhh! My boy! My pride and joy! Wait. Does this mean I’ve taught you everything I know, and you can leave the monastery now?”

“I’m glad I have no idea what you mean. And that’s my cover, anyway. I’m not really.”

“Huh.” Seb lumbered to his feet. “Tease. Don’t toy with me. Oh, actually; do. Last night looked so much fun. I want it like that, but with the next size up.”

Which Seb had surely purchased. Sherlock didn’t envy his accountant, dealing with receipts from the shops and services Seb favoured. It wouldn’t bother Seb at all to hand them over, Sherlock knew.

“Later. Focus,” he murmured.

“What are you undercovering? Where are you really going?”

“I’m joining the demonstration outside Avalon. I got an in with the leader of the animal rights people yesterday, but today will see the arrival of a militant group joining them, the workers from Beside the Seaside, angry at Avalon’s throwing them under the Routemaster.”

“Hey. These protests can get very ugly very quickly. And I don’t just mean when the inbred from the shires turn up. Well, that as well.”

“Seb.” Sherlock gave up and started the bath.

“Seriously, remember last year’s ‘City of London Corporation May Protest’? Four days of wall-to-wall tents and jugglers and steel drums and keepie-uppie contests.” Seb shuddered. “Ghastly. Then all of a sudden some new lot arrived and Mansion House got attacked. This May Day a lot of City firms hired private security. Well, imagine leaving it to the City of London Police! What an oxymoron they are. To a man. They do regulate, give out licences to march, but no one can predict how a crowd will turn once thugs attach themselves to a protest. Look at the tuition fee riot. Poor Camilla got a huge poke. And not in good way. Oh, this bathroom is awful.”

“Bet you’ve got a huge one designed for the new space.”

“Can’t wait for the KT. Knock through, dolt.”

“I was thinking, why don’t we just go back to your house? I mean, it has everything you need there?” Sherlock knew Seb loved his comforts.

 “It might have everything I need, but it hasn’t got everything we need.” Seb groped Sherlock’s arse as he passed. “It will have. Quite the challenge!”

It was extremely cramped with both of them squashed in the tub.

“And to return to the topic after your attempt at derouting, to that’s why I’m backing you up. At the protest.”

Sherlock couldn’t really object: there wasn’t room with Seb in his lap. And they had said they’d involve the other in their things. He started planning. “You’d have to go separately. And not acknowledge me.”

“The cut direct! I’ll think WWMHD?”

“Huh?”

“What would Mrs Holmes do? Padawan. So much to learn, have you.”

“I’m serious.” Sherlock emphasised this with a bubble of lather applied to the end of Seb’s nose. “You cannot take any risks. If anything happens, get out. I’m going to get close to the ringleaders who targeted Chiara in Clevedon when she went to speak to the factory people. I presume you know she crashed her Merc after that. My thinking is… Well. You can guess. So you can’t wait for me, and don’t come back to the scene if anything goes down. And I will be flirting with the animal rights leader. And his pet rat. And schmoozing up to huge, muscular factory workers with thick…accents.” Sherlock shuddered, and Seb, looking sombre, nodded tightly and shut up, his lips pressed into a twist.

“ _Dress up in you_ ,” Sherlock commented minutes later, helping himself to Seb’s clothes. Seb was looking extra Square Mile-like. His version of their disguise? He was rushing, to get to Bea. Who was looking so sweet in a new dress.

“Oh! Did you see that?” Bea had shaken her head and pushed the bottle away. Frik turned to them.

“What?”

“She curled her hands up on her cheeks and pulled them away! That’s the sign for cat!” Sure enough, Beamish was up on the worktop, in a way that would have horrified Mrs Hudson.

“Sherlock.” Frik gently burped Bea, making a gesture for Seb to wait to hold her. “She can’t see that far yet. Also her motor skills aren’t developed sufficiently. In addition, her cognitive skills can’t match a gesture to a thing yet. Finally, who would have taught her the sign?”

Seb, his top half wrapped in a large white square, took Bea and sat. “Yes. You’re quite potty over her,” he added, making devoted little sounds and faces to make her coo.

Sherlock took the mass of scrambled eggs Mrs Hudson had left and dumped some on a plate. Checking no one except Bea was watching, he made a _W_ sign with his right hand and tapped his first finger near his chin twice. Beatrice nodded and gurgled. “She wants water,” Sherlock instructed Seb, smugly, and fed him bites of egg as Seb held Bea’s water bottle for her. Frik shook his head.

“And that’s ‘father’?” Seb was watching Sherlock gesture and point to himself.

“Yes. Problem is there’s no sign for Papa as well. She’ll be confused.”

“Is there one for mannyguard?” asked Seb.

“Don’t think so. Or for undercover. I’d have to spell the word out, and she doesn’t know the alphabet, for sure.”

“Oh yes. Sherlock and I are infiltrating a protest in the City.”

“Great activist gear,” Frik replied, pointing at their clothes. “Or are you both protesting your bonuses weren’t big enough?”

“And you’re…” Sherlock paused, trying to work it out. Frik was speaking with less of an accent and looking smoother and more well-dressed, his icy-blue eyes tempered to almost normal with coloured lenses.

“Beatrice and I are infiltrating various cliques of nannies and their charges in various parts of Hyde Park. As soon as her pram and handmade hat and coat are delivered.”

There was no answer to that, although Sherlock suddenly wondered if all bodyguards took such an active role in cases. Surely this was more detective work? He listened to Seb catching Frik up and arranging a time to update by phone. Mrs Hudson and Mrs Turner were standing guard over the delivery man as Sherlock and Seb left the house for the second time, and Beamish came down with them to inspect the enormous pram, deciding where to place himself to ride along with Beatrice and her nanny.

“There’s an awful lot of coffee in Brazil, and in the Square Mile too,” Seb sang tunelessly as Sherlock emerged from the City coffee shop with four plastic containers in a paper tray. “You must be tired.”

“It’s a gift to some hard-working protestors. I’ll go on ahead. You stroll along, preferably with some banker mates…”

“I know you think I’m soppy, but I love being a family with you and our daughter,” Seb suddenly announced, in one of his trademark 180º changes of topic.

“Not soppy.” Sherlock grinned. “Well, a bit.”

“Just wanted to say it.” Seb nodded. “Can’t wait till we can announce it loud and proud. It’s so strange how much ours she feels. Is. Right. Carry on.”

Sherlock fought to get into character as he slouched along to the wide concrete forecourt before the revolving doors of the huge Avalon building. The animal botherers were emerging from their pop-up tents and splashing with water or running baby wipes over themselves. Matt spotted him, lingering awkwardly.

“Hey! You came back!”

“Oh, I, yes. I thought you and Maz and Jeff, was it, might need a coffee?”

“There’s four.” The henna enthusiast came up and pointed out the obvious.

“I thought I…” He stopped as she dug an elbow in Matt and winked.

“We don’t support that chain? Do you know how they set a price for the crop of coffee beans and force small, independently owned business –”

“Maz. We’ll make an exception.” Matt took one of the coffees.

“Got this for Vic.” Sherlock held out the muffin in its wrapper.

“That’s so kind! Do you want to hold him again?”

Sherlock was prevented from answering by Jeff coming up and enquiring noisily if Sherlock were a reporter. Matt informed him Simon was on his way to another job interview and was a –

“Accountant. Client billing and receivables.” He’d asked Seb in the cab. “But I’m not some sort of bread head. I am interested.”

 _In Matt,_ he saw Maz mouth.

“Fuck me,” Jeff said, pointing at a minibus pulling up and a group getting out. Mostly men, big men, definitely not vegetarian animal rights protestors and more definitely not City slickers. “You didn’t. She didn’t,” he continued as Maz rushed across to join them.

“Now _those_ look like reporters,” Sherlock pointed out helpfully at a couple of people with microphones trailed by others with cameras. He saw Seb on the edge of the gathering crowd, mobile ready to film, along with the others. Also saw faces he recognised from the video at the seaside plant. Angry, militant faces then, just as angry looking now, or more so, fuelled by the announcement of the loss of their jobs and their town’s industry. Matt’s fellow demonstrators shrank into as small a group as possible, behind him and Sherlock, and one apologised when a suited and booted man exclaimed in annoyance at his path being blocked by the assembly.

“There’s no room to put the stands with the leaflets out with all these people,” Matt worried, but Sherlock didn’t think that a huge issue. Within minutes the employee representative ringleader was handing out placards, bigger and bolder than the diffident ALTERNATIVES TO ANIMAL TESTING and DON’T HURT US posters the first group were starting to hold up, displaying their credentials or justifying their presence.

“We were here first!” someone behind Sherlock muttered. The newcomers weren’t muttering. They were shouting, yelling loudly that they’d been lied to, robbed, that Avalon were crooks, thieves, buying them out, then selling them out, throwing them out like rubbish.

The squat, balding musclebound union activist who’d been the first to throw a missile at Chiara’s car, organised the gang into a chain, one link facing the street and next the Avalon building in turn. He directed them to make a loop around the front of the huge edifice and its revolving doors. Maximum intimidation tactics, Sherlock recognised. He saw the security guards on their phones, presumably calling for back-up. The chanting was loud and aggressive, and a couple of women trying to get first through and then round the cordon to enter the building backed away, nervous and confused.

“Matt! Do something!” Jeff implored.

“I’m soothing Vic! He’s getting scared!” Matt replied. “Oh, bloody hell.” This as their bag of leaflets and posers was knocked over and trodden on by the reporter from a local news show the agitators had brought with them. Sherlock suddenly missed Lestrade – he’d understand their accents at least. The crowd was growing; people gathering to watch the show.

 _Distract reporter /cam’men_ Sherlock texted to Seb. He only had to wait a minute before a fracas started, someone down on the floor saying he’d tripped over the wire, needed medical attention, couldn’t move, needed his lawyer, he’d sue. The boom operator, bewildered, was arguing back, his tone rising and getting louder with each sentence. A subcrowd gathered here, braying tones competing with Mummerset burrs and some of the protestors broke free of their chain, while others yelled at them to get back. People were staring to yell and throw scrunched-up balls of paper and paper aeroplanes bearing obscene notes out of office windows. Within minutes the tenor of the whole thing had changed.

The bald union man was standing there, looking a little confused. Sherlock straightened up and dashed over. “Sorry! Coffee run took ages! Lucky we’ve a minute, hey!”

“Yeah?” replied the man, squinting all around and at Sherlock, but taking the drink.

“Quick run through? Warm-up?” Sherlock was bouncing, buzzing energy. “How are you starting? What did –” He pointed back at the reporter, now drawn into the dispute.

“Oh, Phil’s gonna comment on our reaction to the announcement, us being here at the HQ. And my reply is we were already ready to move: suspected this was on the cards from the second the takeover was announced. Avalon doesn’t care about us, never did. Only acquired us as we look nice on their portfolio. Another product line along with their baby stuff and luxury goods. Got all the bastard market covered now. I won’t swear on telly,” he assured Sherlock, who nodded, quick, eager. “A famous, successful one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old company just snapped up to boost some massive faceless corporation. Then when they’d got all the mileage from the news, they just grab up the production and chuck us on the muck heap.”

“And didn’t the family personally promise you…”

“Oh, the wicked queen sent her little princess down to us, all that way, full of nice words and smiles for us. She’d pushed it through, the daughter, her idea, and she made management an offer they couldn’t refuse.”

“Because…” Thankfully the coffee or the excitement was making the man verbose.

“Well, now we know, don’t we?” His gesture highlighted Matt and his group. “Taking the heat off their bastard animal testing! Us, quality, highly sought-after products with traditional handmade manufacture, used to greenwash! We knew she was up to something.”

“Right, right.” Sherlock looked round. Not much time left. Matt was staring at him. Vic looked hurt. “And when an Avalon spokesman comes along, all sweet and charming, to say they don’t test on animals…”

“Oh for God’s sake! Just cause they don’t get their lily-white hands dirty here don’t mean nothing! If they wanna make even more money selling their souls in the Far East, all the bastard ingredients in their stupid products have to be certified by the official organisations there first, which means they have to be tested there! Owning our natural products don’t cancel that out, no matter what the d’Avalos family think. Or what Joe Public to think. We’re here to stop that.”

“You think you can stop them, stop her buying you out,” Sherlock dropped his breezy ‘meeja’ tone and stood stone-eyed, goading the irritated man.

“What the fuck? She’s stopped, now, anyhow. Wasn’t smiling when she left. Tried to destroy our livelihoods, and her life’s destroyed. And now the plans have slowed down, yeah? And with all this, we can get enough public sympathy to reverse the decision! How about that then?”

Sherlock reeled back at the malevolence in the man’s small eyes and the aggression in his stance. That malice. It was real, _evil_. For the first time, he believed – Two more men Sherlock remembered from the car park encounter joined the bald man and started questioning him, Pat, about the skinny bloke, Sherlock, and the hold-up and the reporter and –

“Police!”

Seb’s voice, Sherlock thought, jolted awake and aware enough to flinch, crying out, from one of the men and bash into another, who shoved back, yelling obscenities, and whose flailing arm hit a security guard asking him to tone down his language. Then it was fast and jerky and confused, helped by Sherlock’s furious determination that the thugs would not get no sympathy from the public: men, activists, security guards, jeering locals, innocent bystanders, City of London police, identifiable by their red and white not black and white checks, and a couple of plain clothes detectives all caught up in the yelling, fighting fray.

One of these detectives was middle aged, skinny, with thinning straggly hair, eye bags and a lined face. He’d ironed out his regional accent a little since Sherlock had last seen him, when the man, DI Carter, had stormed into 221B enraged with Sherlock and John. He was mad at the former for his treatment of him via Web cam and at the latter for the fees and expenses he’d charged for travelling to the middle of nowhere for the case and then for the way John had written up said case and its solution on his blog. DI Carter was not happy to have been presented with the answer to his problem in that cavalier fashion, John having assumed Sherlock had apprised Carter that he’d solved it and how.

On that occasion, they’d let Carter rant and rage and threaten to arrest them both, and then John had called the local boys in blue and put in a complaint against him for police harassment. And for being drunk on duty. Carter’s being there in his free time had made it worse, not better. Carter had sworn vengeance. And seemingly been moved to the City police. Promotion? Demotion? Own request, as a way into the capital? Who knew. But City of London police he was: the gold bar tiepin, their CID visual analogue of the uniformed officers’ brass buttons and badges, shouted it aloud.

And afterwards of course Sherlock realised he’d had no need to do it, to react in that way, but as soon as Carter pushed through a huge, snarling, melee of reporters, City bullies, shouting protestors and yelling ex-employees, came face-to-face with Sherlock and yelled, “YOU! Should have known you’d be here, my first big case here! You’re not messing this one up for me! I’m having you, Mr Sh –” Sherlock moved back, swung forward, and knocked him out cold.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Chapter Fifteen**

It wasn’t the first time he’d been clapped in handcuffs and dragged off. Wasn’t even the first time he’d been taken in in connection with a public order offence. Or assaulting a police office. Or resisting arrest. It was the first time he’d literally been marched off to the station, however. Must be quicker and easier: the Bishopsgate City of London police station was in the next street, he discovered, hurried along there, making an effort to cry out his innocence, that he was only in the street for a job interview, that Beside the Seaside were a bunch of thugs and bullies. Those taken away with him limited themselves to swearing vengeance.

They were followed by a couple of journalists and a pack of Square Mile boys filming and commenting, this ‘guard’ perhaps keeping the shoving and pushing he expected of the police down to a minimum. The steel-and-glass station had a small entrance and was tucked between City buildings as if camouflaged. A dishevelled Carter caught up with him as he was being processed in, this process made tricky by no one having charged him, and, shouting and swearing, made a wild lunge for him.

“Sir!” said an eager redheaded uniformed sergeant who’d arrived seconds after Carter and now held the inspector back. Sherlock stood his ground, impervious.

“I’m holding you for as long as possible before I decide on the charges, you bastard!” Carter ground out.

“Call it twenty-four hours?” Sherlock queried. The maximum without being charged.

“And with no phone call.”

“I’m not feeling chatty.” Sherlock mimed zipping his mouth shut.

“Right, you just got yourself thirty-six hours. And yes, we can if the superintendent agrees. And he will. Then it’s a charge. _Bastard!_ ”

Carter held him with a menacing stare before rushing off, presumably to his higher-ups. The energetic sergeant uncuffed him and showed him to an interview room, not a holding cell. Interesting. He also kept Sherlock supplied with tea and coffee and water all day, and popped in from time to time with the newspaper and a selection of magazines. Sherlock didn’t have his phone. He made notes in his notebook and eventually went to sleep. He didn’t have his watch, but estimated it was evening when Carter eventually came in. He shut the door slowly and pulled a chair up to the table, knocking Sherlock’s legs to the floor before he sat.

“Right, you bastard. Let’s be having you,” was his opener. Sherlock rolled his eyes at the clichéd approach. He didn’t think Carter would get on very well in the City police. “Let’s see what we can stack up. I’m the envy of police in four borough commands, by the way.” He preened. “Probably others, but I haven’t had time to get on the blower to more. Saving yer pal till last. Lestrade,” he clarified. “Oh, no doubt he’ll be pleading and arguing yer case for yer on his first day back after leave. Should be fun.”

“Please charge me, would you.” Sherlock made a show of yawning, just to see Carter going redder by the second.

“Keeping you, am I!” he eventually spluttered, and shoved his chair back hard and squeakily to stand up. Just then the door opened, and Carter stopped looming over the table to turn round. The sergeant came up to him and whispered something, his eye on Sherlock.

“Who?”

More whispers.

“Who’s he?”

More conversation, then Carter breathed, his tone as full of menace as he could make it, “This’d better be everything you say it is, kid, or you’ll be sorry.” He fixed Sherlock with a glare. “I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be waiting,” replied Sherlock, swinging his legs up again.

“Someone’s brought some cake in, if you fancy a slice?” the sergeant asked him.

Sherlock waved a hand. “Oh, I’m fine, thanks. You go ahead.” He thought he wouldn’t have long to wait, somehow: he was convinced he’d caught Seb’s name being whispered. Within five minutes the door opened again, and the man himself stuck his head round.

“Ready to go?” He looked a little pale, but his mouth was shaped into its usual sardonic flattened twist.

“ _Get Me Away from Here, I'm Dying_ ,” was Sherlock’s reply.

“Umm. See that,” Seb commented, taking the bag with Sherlock’s possessions from the desk officer. As Sherlock glanced curiously round for Carter or anyone, Seb led him out and sat him down on the doorstep so he could lace his shoes. Seb fastened his watch for him.

“I’m not…incapacitated?” Sherlock remarked, nevertheless tilting his head for Seb to knot his tie for him.

“You can never keep a tie on. Oh, so you don’t want this?” A carton of Sherlock’s favourite soft drink. “The normal or the tooth friendly?” He held both versions, one in each hand. Sherlock took the normal and drained it dry in one huge gulp. The room had been overwarm.

“Notice I’m not yelling, not angry, just presuming you had a good reason for causing that mad arrest-a-thon, and no time to tell me, the way things played out,” came Seb’s next comment.

“Well thought. Bea?” Sherlock asked on a gasp, throwing the empty container away and taking the other.

“Oh, fine.” Seb nudged him to get him moving. “Had a lovely time in the park, was a big hit, apparently. I joined them for a nice lunch at Angelo’s – interesting friends; you were much missed, but they were understanding about you being banged up – and she and Beamish seem to have acquired one of what the RSPB Book of British Birds informs me is a Great Crested Grebe from what her nanny informed me was the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. I say acquired: it showed up for tea, at any rate.”

(Seb speaking quickly and a lot: more worried and concerned than he’s showing. Not pushing at fringe: not nervous about the interview he just had. So, a plan. Anxious about me, in there? That I felt he abandoned me to be with Bea?) “Good work sticking to the plan and keeping on the outside to coordinate. And she needed you more than I did. Good call.”

“Hm. See you didn’t.”

Seb’s hand was near, so Sherlock took it, squeezed it in his. “So. Another part-time pet.”

“Mrs H is still going spare. It took a whole bottle of Harrods Pedro Ximénez sherry _and_ a box of their Opulent English Chocolate Assortment to calm her down.”

Sherlock grinned. “She also likes the London Icon English Chocolate Selection.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, shall I? I might as well get a hamper in to dole out as necessary. Just to be on the safe side.”

Sherlock threw his second empty carton away. “How did you get the sherry and chocolates at short notice?”

“Oh, the store has a special instant twenty-four hour delivery service for platinum card holders.”

“Didn’t know there were such things. Didn’t know you were one.”

“Me neither. And I’m not. Beatrice is. She has charge cards at most stores and the bills go to her lawyer.”

“Wow. Handy. And lawyer? Possible –”

“It’s that ancient bloke who was her mum’s retainer and who Pa says is as straight as an arrow.”

“I see.” Sherlock paused for Sebastian to greet an acquaintance. He was glad he was smartly dressed and not letting Seb down in public. “Do I have our daughter to thank for Sergeant Helpful?” He suspected not.

“No. That was me. I collared him during the circus procession to the station. He seemed a bright lad. Eager to help.” Seb made a ‘money’ gesture.

“Good choice. He makes a lovely cup of tea. And got me the _Lancet_.”

“Good. I just thought WWMD?”

“What would…Ma do?” Sherlock was learning.

“Umm. At Slough Comprehensive, Eton to you, she used to pay off people at the start of term to make sure I had an easy time of it.”

“Wow. Some mentor. And some Telemachus.”

“Belle. Such old-fashioned vocab you have. No one uses that term anymore,” said Seb sadly, patting his hand.

“I see. What’s the complement of mentor in that situation, then?”

“Dementor, dolt. Look. See that van?”

Sherlock looked to where Seb was quietly indicating down the smaller street. The inconspicuous van was partly hidden behind bollards. “Is it an undercover bakery van?”

“What? No. And I can explain about the Red Velvet Whoopie Pies. I’m going in there. Wait a minute, then follow.”

Sherlock stared as Seb did just that, knocking, and opening the back door enough to slip in. He obeyed Seb’s instructions to see Seb with his jacket off, shirt unbuttoned and trousers open, and a second man fishing in his boxer shorts, saying, “I did say it would be easier if you were completely waxed.” Seb held in a squeal as the man ripped adhesive tape from him and pulled something metallic free. The tall, wiry man had military short black hair, a tanned, expressionless face and such dark black eyes people usually jumped when he looked at them. Sherlock had hidden his flinch, he hoped. He did now as the man regarded him.

“ _Shalom_ , Sherlock.”

“Evening, Benjamin. And your hand is in Sebastian’s unmentionables because…”

“Of leverage,” Seb supplied. He indicated the surveillance equipment. “Recorded proof never hurts.”

“Aha.” He’d suspected something along these lines, but it would be interesting to see what. “Except when it does.”

“Umm. There is that.” Seb finished dressing, shrugging his clothes on in the cramped space.

“Worked fine. Ready for the show?” Ben didn’t waste words, just passed them headphones and started the recording.

“The City of London is the world’s leading international financial and business centre. Policing the Square Mile brings with it particular challenges, quite unlike any other policing area within the UK. We are committed to fighting crime at all levels. Although we fulfil a national role tackling fraud and other serious criminality, our local role is no less important to us,” a professional voice began, brisk and bright.

Seb made a stop signal. He frowned, his lips forming a confused _W_ shape. Sherlock removed his phones as well, to hear Ben hiccup back a slight…giggle?

“Sorry. Got bored waiting. Just thought it needed a build-up. Context.” He was the expert in electronics, Sherlock knew. “I spliced that in from the City of London police website. Carry on?”

‘“Let the voices of all sing of the flower of lilies, giving due praise to the founder. Mindful of his benefaction, let us sing together how great was the royal genius towards his pupils,”’ came Seb’s voice, in a warble, interrupted by the trill of his phone, then, “Hey! It wasn’t that bad! I performed on Fourth of June!”

Seb in real life pulled off the headphones again and complained, “You said the testing-the-level part would be cut out! Wait.” He glared at the two giggling men. “I didn’t actually need to sing the school song, did I. That’s not a traditional thing people really have to when they’re mic’ed up undercover, is it.”

“Oh, man. Can’t wait till next pub night.” Ben wiped his eyes. “Shall we?”

Seb glared, but put his headphones back on, closing his eyes as his recorded voice singing, “Jolly boating weather, and a harvest breeze, blade on the feather, shade off the trees,” merged into Carter’s, “Sebastian Wilkes. Shad Sanderson. Head, Trading Floor. Who the hell are you, and what’s so bloody urgent?”

“You just read my card. I’m here to collect Sherlock Holmes. He’ll be missing EastEnders. He’s following the ‘return of Sharon’ storyline and he gets cranky when he misses an ep.”

“I am not!” Sherlock mouthed to Ben.

“Who the hell do you think you are coming in here shouting the odds? Are you mad or do you want locking up as well?”

“Look, Carter, since we’re trading clichés, cards on the table, yes? I’m someone who’s in a position to help you be useful to him.”

There was a pause while Carter worked that out. Seb’s stare must have convinced the inspector he was serious.

“Go on.”

“Who am I. Well, I’m the person who’s saying you know your very own corporate liaison director is corrupt, don’t you? The man who’s supposed to align the management of the City police with the needs of the –”

“Yes, I know who he is and what his job is, thank you. And I suppose you have evidence.”

“Oh, tons. Where to start. Hmm. Oh, fraud. Always a winner in the world’s leading international financial and business centre. Yes. That expert financial and cyber-security service to consult on economic crime inquiries you just appointed.” Sherlock could see Seb making air quotes “Would you like proof that the firm just awarded the consultancy contract is not fit for purpose and was chosen merely because it was the cheapest tender? And that, incidentally, its bid was lower than its rivals thanks to inside knowledge of its rivals’ bids?

“I, that…” Carter’s spluttering was unattractive at best. He sounded as if he’d been knocked out again.

“Um, and it’s cheap as the firm doesn’t have the inside edge and contacts and latest technology it should. That it said it had. Pay peanuts, get monkeys. Disgraceful, really.”

“We paid good money for that!” Carter was rallying. To no avail.

“Ask yourself where it got skimmed off to. Or I suppose you need me to tell you. Here’s a clue. Which liaiser’s son-in-law owns the company that won the contract? Ironic, this financial crime crackdown. Oxymoron.” Seb’s cough on the first syllable of that word meant the second came out loud.

“Hey! Last year sixty percent of crime investigated by the unit was cleared up!”

“Oh, really. Massage isn’t just what happens in a parlour in Soho, you know-know,” came Seb’s pitying tone. “Be a good boy and I might drop some hints of a multinational banking and financial services company with a sweet little designer tax-avoidance scheme. It’s a bit over your head but involves investment funds and an interesting claim that non-taxable income entitled the funds to tax credits that could be reclaimed from HMRC.”

There was a pause before Carter’s voice said, “And when you do, I’ll own you.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, you ghastly little man. You’ll be mine, and I expect good value from you, when you’ve moved higher in your career. The present commander won’t last forever, you know. Now, I trust we understand each other? Good. I want you to pretend I have a wand up my sleeve and that I am in fact a wizard.”

“What?”

“Because I’m going to make Sherlock Holmes vanish.” Seb on the tape snapped his fingers. The recording stopped. Good editing.

“Um, Seb. You might want to stop reading children’s books,” said Sherlock, handing the phones back to Ben. “And was that you channelling your mother again?”

“Sort of her and Alli’s ma in a fusion of –”

“ _Goys._ You can do this here, but I’m on the clock,” said Ben, taking Seb’s phones.

“We’re gone,” said Seb.

“One at a time and –”

‘“Go someone well lit and public to rendezvous.’ That wine bar entrance on the corner will do. It’s called Chase’s,” replied Seb. He widened his eyes at Sherlock and left.

“Hey, _mazel_ on the kid, Sherlock. I hear she’s pretty and really bright,” Ben commented.

“Oh. Thanks. How?”

“Frik won’t stop going on about her. We get all these updates. Can't wait to meet her.”

“Oh!”

“ _Gay avek_.” Ben ordered the proud and delighted Sherlock away, opening the door to speed his way.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Chapter Sixteen**

“Sherlock Holmes!” Seb, idling on the plinth under the restaurant’s –no; this bit was a bar – narrow, dull gold awning as if a snoutcast, called out to him.

Sherlock went to join him. “Sebastian Wilkes. Well, well.”

“Fancy,” replied Seb, looking Sherlock up and down, hooded-eyed. “Running into you. Fancy a quick one?”

“Prefer a drink.” Sherlock ducked his head to hide his grin as he replied. Only Seb brought this side of him out. Had, ever. It had lain dormant, neglected, tamped down for so many years, he realised, before being with back with Seb had revived it. “Just…”

“What,” Seb whispered.

“I haven’t put Bea to bath and bed for two nights,” he muttered.

“Oh. I see. And unless you’ve got a time turner –”

“Seb….”

“– you can’t tonight either.” Seb raised an eyebrow. “So, come?”

“Sebastian Wilkes, are you asking me out for a drink?”

“Sherlock Holmes, yes I am. Will you come? We’ve got a babysitter.” He lowered his voice even more as a couple passed between them, down the two steps and turning right into the bar, not trying the sneaky left-turn cut-through into the restaurant proper. Too late, possibly. “And an article I didn’t read in a woman’s mag I didn’t buy said parents need alone time.”

“And we’re never alone,” sighed Sherlock, thinking of their entourage. “A huge drink it is then.” This loud, public.

“Here’s not too vile,” announced Seb, weathering a black look from the bouncer as they popped down the steps and inside. Inside was a narrowish space with a small bar against the wall opposite the door and made romantic and intimate by low lighting and tinkling music, and the small candlelit tables dotted along its length.

‘“A candle for the table. More romantic,”’ muttered Sherlock as they were shown to a secluded space amidst the golds and creams. Another time, another date? Had it been? Oh. Sod.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

“I’ve warned you about that.” Seb hardly had to lean forward in his upholstered chair to flick Sherlock’s ear. He settled, stretching out his long legs, and rubbed an ankle against Sherlock’s. Something occurred to Sherlock.

“We’re getting married.”

“Hope so. Or I’ll feel a right tit if I’m left at the altar. Warning you now.”

“And this is our first date?”

“That’s a goddam lie.” Seb picked up the wine list. “I took you out for a baked potato supper two months ago.”

“And that was it?”

“Yeah. I’m _that_ good.” Seb closed the list with a snap.

Sherlock laughed. “You proposed to me with a slide rule!”

“And you accepted with fish and chips. And it was a platinum-plated slide rule.”

“Well they were good fish and chips! I had to drive miles to get them.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow as Seb ordered a half bottle of some drink or other. “Half?”

“Six a.m. feeding. Nanny gets a lie-in. Keeps him sweet.”

“Talking of, getting the agency, well, Benjamin at the last minute like that must have been expensive.”

Painful too, but Sherlock didn’t bring that up. Just pressed back against Seb’s foot.

“Sherbet! It’s vulgar to talk about money.”

Seb looked around at the décor, nodding approvingly along to the live Debussy coming from the piano on the tiny podium at the window area down the end. He liked anything that was used in a film or an ad. His avoidance prodded at something in Sherlock, and he frowned, trying to remember.

“Sebastian. At university, when you finished, there was a rumour about you – no, shush a sec – and a group or a company or something you’d formed or joined to…buy something. Like a bar, or a boat, or a bathhouse. Can’t remember. But I’m just wondering what things…you might actually have invested in.”

“Ah.”

“You do! You bloody do! You own the bodyguard agency you use!”

“Shhh! No one knows. Not them, not anyone. And I don’t exactly, just became a partner and got them to open a branch here, instead of running it from the States. It makes sense! It’s the best. The way things are there can only be an ever-increasing need for tailored VIP close protection. More people are needing tactical responses and personal security. It’s getting like Rio! We’re IBSSA accredited. And associated. But, shhh.”

“Just seems incongruous for you.”

“Mate! I’ve long fantasised about being on a speaker phone, directing all these foxes in bikinis and hunks in Speedos ’coz I can’t decide!” Seb made a weighing gesture.

Perplexed, Sherlock leant forwards and felt Seb’s forehead. John did it to him when he was ‘acting lairy’ as he put it and… Oh. John was coming up frequently tonight.

“It’s a TV show, dolt!”

The drink arrived, and Seb said, suddenly, “So if you were to come to work for us, your lordship, you wouldn’t want to use your title at all, and would be known as…” He shut up as the waiter poured. Sherlock ignored the playacting, just waited until they were alone.

“What you did at the station. Thanks awfully, of course, but won’t you be in difficulties at the bank?”

“No, not a bit of it, old chap. Sir Alan is delighted we have a pet City detective in our pocket when we need to rat out our competitors anonymously. In fact, the old sweetie told me to add another nought onto my bonus. I’m thinking…roof garden. With lake.” He nodded in satisfaction.

“Might be useful for the grebes,” Sherlock agreed.

“That pond has snow geese too. I’m thinking ahead.”

They were interrupted by a man, the manager, popping over with complimentary mineral water and glasses and trays of nuts and olives and crisps and asking how everything was.

“Oh, how kind. Lord – my guest was asking about those liver and onion rolls he remembers you doing. I told him they’re served earlier, as a sort of early dinner, and…”

They were assured it wouldn’t be any problem at all.

“Good. Only two minutes’ reaction time to a title. Making a note. I might be in the lead in the stakes,” Seb muttered, typing on his phone. “You’ll be a witness, if necessary?”

“Sebastian Wilkes. Do you actually do any work at all all day?” Not for the first time Sherlock was wondering. “I don’t think I like liver and onion rolls. You can have mine.”

“I love you,” Seb sighed. “So much so that we’re going to celebrate our one-week anniversary early. It’s a week since you said you’d be mine. Wait there for some spontaneous romance.”

He ambled off, and a minute later Sherlock was twisting his chair round – only one person played 'As Time Goes By' quite like that, and certainly no one else smoothed it into the _Muppets Show_ theme and ended his performance with 'Great Balls of Fire,' complete with fringe being flopped madly during the even madder glissandos. Sherlock was on his feet whistling and huzzah’ing, and Seb looked startled at all the applause from the bar’s other customers. He was lured back to the table by the food, and Sherlock mostly stared at him in amazement as he polished off the pungent filled rolls.

Maybe the only way he’d find out what Seb did own, or was worth, would be if their lawyers sat down to hash out some prenuptial contract, slapping their clients’ deeds and share certificates and receipts down like gamblers throwing down playing cards. “I’d forgotten how much I liked hearing you play. I’ve missed it,” Sherlock said, meaning it and more, knowing Seb hadn’t played since that time: he’d said he wouldn’t and was a man of his word. He knew what present to get Seb now. He sat back as they were brought glasses of champagne, a gift from a delighted customer, it seemed.

“Don’t drink it till I’ve analysed it,” Sherlock said.

“Way to kill the mood. Slip your hand in my trouser pocket, could you?” Seb asked, all wide-eyed innocence.

“And that’s you resetting the mood?”

“I need my phone.”

“Which is in your jacket pocket.”

“So I like a little cheap thrill now and then! Is it a crime?”

“Here.” Sherlock wiped Seb’s hands for him. Seb retrieved his phone, and showed a grinning Sherlock pictures of Bea at Angelo’s.

“She was definitely speaking more there. Because of the language,” he informed Sherlock. “Not sure if I was such a hit, though. My Italian’s pretty rudimentary, but I thought I heard, “Preferred the short blond.”

“It’s our local. They’ll forgive you anything, producing such a beauty as Bea.” Sherlock was scrolling through the set. He stopped. He was believing their cover story.

“Right. Back to work.” Seb took his phone back.

“Shortest date ever,” Sherlock groused. “You just think I’m a sure thing, don’t you.”

“Hope so. Now and forever.”

Sherlock felt his breath catch at the almost shy look Seb peeped up at him from under his long eyelashes.

“I’ll try,” he whispered.

“And I.” Seb coughed, took a drink of water. “Now. How much further on are we? Thanks to our research assistant, we know Chiara was the impetus behind interest in that company and the one who pushed the purchase through.”

“Huh?”

“Daniel. Been finding and scanning.” Seb held out his phone and scrolled down a list of articles. “Look at this one.”

The article, dominated by a picture of the Avalon matriarch Adele was highlighted, and Sherlock read, ‘“My daughter likes the products so much, I ran out of gift baskets to give her, so I’m giving her the company!’ That could be marketing. It sounds trite,” Sherlock objected.

“I had a quick word with Pa. Chiara did like the stuff they made and the company’s ethos. She believed in it, in cruelty-free products. He mentioned again how her maid had been with her since she was a kid. And her lawyer. And the staff at the house and on her Foundation all loved her. Said she was like the sun that warmed them all. I see where Bea gets her temperament from.”

“Hey.” Sherlock stroked Seb’s hand. “We’ll solve this. For him. For her.” Seb’s phone reminded him his was still switched off, from the police station. “I’m not sure how far we can believe that PR stuff.” His phone rang. He had a ton of messages as well, he saw. All from the same number. “Amanda.”

“Sherlock! Are you okay? I saw the news! I know that was you! Where are you?”

“Drinking champagne in a wine bar.”

“Oh! I suppose that means you’re at large. Unless that’s prison slang for something I’d rather not know?” She sounded less breathless.

“No. I’m out. No problem. No charges.”

“Right. Well. That makes all my being about to fly to the rescue look silly, then. I’m baking a huge cake, to slip a file in, getting you a disguise, forging you a new passport – the works.”

He couldn’t help a smile. “That won’t be necessary. But I appreciate the sentiment.” He pretended not to notice Seb’s amazed look. “How are you getting on?”

“Oh! That’s what I want to tell you. I started with that Seaside company, as you were so interested in it and its connection to Avalon. It’s not so much linked to Avalon as one person. If you look at the pdfs I sent, you’ll see what I mean.”

“What are these docs?” He mouthed a thank-you at Seb for holding his champagne glass to his lips as he tried to access them as he talked. Seb pressed the Loudspeaker button for him.

“Board meeting minutes. Read at leisure. I’ll be back with more. I won’t keep you; go and celebrate your freedom.” She could obviously hear the background noise, the manager oiling up to Seb.

“Thank you. Again, much appreciated.” He disconnected and opened the documents.

“Well, well. You like her.” Seb sat back and eyed him.

“She’s very competent. And quick. Can think for herself. I prefer brunets with, what was it, muscular legs and a huge cock.”

“Hmm. This is an issue for another day. What’s this?”

“Oh. Look. The company were contacted by – Chiara made the initial approach to them! And followed up!”

Seb slid round to sit next to him and searched the texts for _Chiara_. “She was keen. Really pushed this takeover. Good offer. I’d need to see their turnover and market share and price per… Yeah. I’ll shut up. Can’t risk a hard-on here.”

“She did want to ‘create a synergy with their organic know-how and savoir faire.’ Something they said.”

“But it wouldn’t, Belle! Avalon would only be churning out a neutered, corporate version of it, like when they took over Relaxed and Beautiful, that range for black skin and hair. They made it all glossy and expensive, beyond the pockets of the original audience.”

He clicked to an article on his phone, for Sherlock to read about one of the rows between the head and her heir, profits winning out over ideals. “She didn’t speak to her mother for ages after that. It was the third longest silence.”

“Chiara proposes, Adele disposes,” was Sherlock’s comment. “And the workers knew what was on the cards,” he continued, speaking rapidly as his mind raced. “Even before the betrayal. Greenwashing. They blamed Chiara and thought if they stopped her, they’d stop the sale. Or, if she was making too many waves…” He closed his eyes against the unwitting pun on the smaller beauty product’s company name.

“Then this was a good excuse to get rid of her. Using the agitators as scapegoats. Someone inside Avalon. Even…”

“Not Mrs Hudson’s heroine! God. Let’s get out. I need London air to think.”


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Chapter Seventeen**

“Think, shmink. You’ve a plan.” Seb made a plosion of the last word, sounding weirdly prissy.

Sherlock took a deep breath of street air. Square Mile air, the oxygen Seb breathed, not the vibrant East End which Sherlock let pulse through him, or the beat of Central London to which he marched. Still London. “Yes. I thought I’d…find a way into the Met’s vehicle recovery forensic examination centre.”

“Huh?”

“Break in to the police car pound. I want to examine Chiara’s Mercedes.”

“Right-oh.” Seb shot his right, then left cuff. “Got my lucky cuff links on too. Boo-yah.”

“Ah. We can’t both… That’s impossible now, now we’re parents. We can’t take a risk like that. Seb, you manage risk! You know we can’t.”

“Oh. Well, my turn then. And I do which end of a car the engine’s in.”

“Ah. It’d better be me. I have to go and persuade a certain DI to get me in. And rustle up a contact who knows about these things. Seb! Don’t… You’re better as an overseer. You adapt to contingencies well. You’re so good at revising and refining plans. You can direct things.”

“You mean…I’m… _Charlie_?”

Sherlock almost couldn’t hear the gasped words, and didn’t know if Seb was calling himself beyond the pale in ’80s slang or referring to himself as coke. Either way, Sherlock nodded. He wondered who Seb was texting.

“It’s a dream come true. And, amazingly, fits with the theme.” Seb paused in his leading of Sherlock down a street to their left. He unlocked their hands and slid what Sherlock discovered was a vanilla-scented car air freshener free of his pocket. “Happy septimanaversary. It’s a week since we got engaged.”

“And I smell?” Although Sherlock wondered if the gift meant something else in the City. He followed the direction Seb was jerking his head in to see a large black car gliding up to them. It looked a little like a black cab at first glance, but was a large saloon car. As it drew alongside them, powerful engine purring, Sherlock took in the adapted glass and protected bodywork. The driver’s compartment looked reinforced too.

“No!” He grabbed Seb’s hand. “You didn’t! Not a car and chauffeur!”

“Sher-lock!” Seb slid his ashamed gaze all around. “No one says chauffeur these days! Driver. Yes.”

“But I haven’t got you anything!” Sherlock scrabbled in his pockets and pulled out a paper napkin from the coffees earlier.

“I’m fine for cheap hankies, thanks.” Seb pouted, then watched as Sherlock took out his pen. “Oh, _Lord_. Are you making me a coupon for one session of Sherlock lovin’?”

“No. It’s a poem.”

Seb came to lean over Sherlock’s shoulder. “Oh crikey. By poem, you mean contract, yes? Especially with you signing it.”

“There.” Sherlock presented the folded napkin with a flourish. “Signed, sealed, delivered. Yours.”

“Really?” Seb’s gaze twisted from the writing to the author. “In your long coat? And scarf? And gloves? My word. Right. Goodness. Well. We’re having this framed, along with the tooth. I take it you like the gift?” He laughed at Sherlock’s eager expression. A man emerged from the front of the car. He was tall and broad, his arms and shoulders massive as he put his jacket on. The smart suit didn’t disguise his breadth and muscle. His shoulders blocked out the street lamps’ light as he approached, and the wan light made his dark skin gleam. His eyes shone a hidden amber brown.

Seb shook the man’s hand. “This is Sherlock. This is Jonas. An expert in vehicles. _Wheels_ ,” Seb rattled out and self-corrected. He loved jargon.

Jonas grinned, a mere flash of teeth in skin shifting to blue-black under the light from a building.

“You don’t say much.”

Jonas folded his arms, making the muscles ripple. _I don’t have to_ , was replied, as clearly as if he’d spoken.

“I see that. I’m just wondering if you’d be up for doing something a little...not at all legal,” Sherlock continued.

Jonas cracked his knuckles, making both men jump.

“I need help checking if a car was tampered with. Brakes, whatever.” This received a slight nod and shrug. _Child’s play._

“How?” Seb.

“I, we, just need official permission or an official distraction at the police car pound.”

“AKA the dishiest DI in the Met? I’ll give you permission.” Seb ushered Sherlock to the car. “Drop me off first? And thank me for my present en route? We don’t have long, so nothing elaborate.”

“That back seat was just re-upholstered,” came in a deep rumble as the door was opened for them. Sherlock rolled his eyes. Why did all their bodyguards take the piss out of them? He did give Seb some small thanks before dropping him in Baker Street, and within twenty minutes was in Lestrade’s street. There was his car. Engine cold: back a while. Curtains drawn: in bed. He picked Lestrade’s lock and was soon at his bedroom door, calling his name as he entered the surprisingly rank-smelling room. Lestrade was indeed in bed, dishevelled, sprawled exhausted. Sherlock approached the untidy bed curiously.

“Sherlock?” A naked Lestrade woke on a start from his doze and looked…nervous. No – alarmed. “No. Please. Dream? If not, go!” He could hardly speak. His gaze was fixed on the door.

“’Lo, Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s jaw dropped to his breastbone as he took in the sight of the tall brunette in the doorway. Allegra was more or less wearing Lestrade’s dressing gown over bare legs and carrying a laden tray.

“You know, Sebastian never wore that tie. Nice to see it getting an airing,” she commented as she sauntered in. “When I gave it to him he said it looked like something you’d wear at a job interview, when you didn’t quite know the corporate code. I knew then he would never wear it, and I couldn’t be bothered to go and change it.”

She made for the bed, Lestrade squashing over at the double to give her room. Sherlock scrambled into the far corner as things, the state of the room, the bed, Lestrade fell into, well not place – he couldn’t say this was the natural order of things. Or maybe it was some sort of new order. Maps had to be redrawn the whole time.

“Pour Sherlock a drink,” she instructed Lestrade, nodding at the bottle on the bedside table. There were two used glassed near it and a fresh one on her tray. Lestrade obeyed, his hand not quite steady as he handed it over. He couldn’t meet Sherlock’s eye, his shiftiness the perfect contrast to Alli’s breeziness.

“Thought I heard you breaking in,” Alli continued. “I’ve done you a toastie. Only cheese and pickle. I couldn’t find much.”

“Oh.” Sherlock took one. “No tomato?”

“No, sorry. Not even a tube of puré.”

Lestrade was still silent during this exchange, and Sherlock began to wonder if he’d ever speak again. Lestrade held a toastie and a drink, and seemed to prefer pouring whiskey down his mouth and stuffing food into it rather than speaking. Sherlock began to enjoy this.

“I was lucky to find this. The bread was like a doorstep before I toasted it, and I had to scrape the mould off the cheese.”

Enjoying it less, Sherlock put his food back on the plate in the middle of the bed, glad he hadn’t touched it. He scowled at Lestrade, he of the slatternly housekeeping.

“So.” Alli washed down her sandwich and poked a bare foot into Sherlock. Her sherry-brown eyes were assessing. “What’s the case? Oh, come on! I recognise that face of yours. You’re here to drag Greg away on some mad adventure or other. You looked like that when persuading him to go to Oxford with you. Or persuading Seb to go and pee in someone’s pond. Or in someone’s pigeon hole.”

“Well…” Sherlock tried to stall.

“Just give me a few minutes to get changed. Remember it takes women longer,” said Alli, setting the plate down on the bedside table.

Sherlock, horrified, was plunged back to infancy and cried, “No girls!”

“What?” came in a low snarl.

‘“No, girl!’ I said,” lied Sherlock. “And no, Lestrade, either. I just came for his warrant card. I can’t find mine. Any of them. This is –”

“Too dangerous for females?” sneered Alli.

“No. South of the river.”

“Eww,” came from Alli.

“In a scrap yard.”

“Yeuch,” she shuddered.

“So…” Sherlock held out a hand for Lestrade’s police ID.

“No. I’ll come. Me help. Duty. Policeman. Lot,” was babbled from the corner of the bed. Sherlock wondered if Lestrade would ever form sentences again. He was sliding from the bed, trying not to show anything to anyone.

“I’d be making you a packed lunch, or rather breakfast, but the only other thing was a packet of ice sculpture fish fingers. Even if I scraped the fungus off, they’d…” Alli shrugged.

 

Within a minute they were outside, and Sherlock was taking a deep breath of cold night air. He glanced up, back at Lestrade’s flat: Alli was at the window, waving. Sherlock waved back. Lestrade twitched. After a minute Lestrade sort of unfroze, eyeing him, opening and shutting his mouth a few times, working his jaw and dry swallowing.

“Sherlock,” he said, after an eon. His voice sounded rusty.

“That’s me.”

“In the past, there were…things you did that I…witnessed and that…I would never reveal because they’d destroy you if people knew.”

“Are there? I take your word for it. I can’t remember. I was off my face when I did them.”

“Oh.” The syllable was dredged up from the bottom of Lestrade’s soul. Sherlock couldn’t bear it.

“Oh for God’s sake, most men would be boasting at having pulled …” He took a long look at his companion. “Oh. This is some scruples, some honour thing. She’s a material witness in the case.”

“Yes, and you brought me in to take care of her through it!”

“Although it seems she’s taking care of you.” She did that, Sherlock knew. Or tried. He couldn’t imagine Seb needing or wanting the pseudo-mothering. Not with his actual mother so active.

“She said she’d come to NY with me. I’m not looking forward to it. For the thank-you celebration. For me finding the priceless stolen painting, Sherlock! Although of course that was you. It’s not just that. She’s –”

“My intended’s ex. How very baroque. And might inconvenience said intended.” And look at him chanelling Seb.

“So professional and personal things involved. Two reasons I’d rather keep this quiet. Sherlock.”

“I see. Well, you need collateral. Leverage.”

“Something on you to keep your mouth shut about this, yes!” This was an explosion.

Sherlock fiddled with his phone to get the picture he wanted and held it out. “Here.” Lestrade’s face creased as he looked.

“Who’s that?”

“Beatrice Maria.” Sherlock’s voice was proud.

“Who’s she?” Lestrade’s was exasperated.

“Your goddaughter, if you accept. I came to ask you.”

“What? But who _is_ she?” Lestrade started scrolling, just as Sherlock replied, “My daughter.”

“ _What? How_ – Oh.” He’d reached a picture of Beatrice and Sebastian. “He’s quick. Hang about.” He raised his glance to Sherlock, and when he spoke, his tone was dark. “He been messing you around?”

“No. It was before we… He didn’t even know until just now. After Oxford. She kept it secret until she died. That’s the other thing I came to ask you to help with. I need to get into the car pound and examine the vehicle she crashed and died in. We think she was murdered.”

“Beatrice Maria.” Now Lestrade’s tone was full of wonder.

“Holmes Wilkes. Bea.” And Sherlock back to proud.

“Wow. And she’s a real beauty.” Lestrade scrolled a bit more. “You’re a father! Wow! C’mere, you.”

And Sherlock was wrestled into a huge, hard hug, clasped tight and warm. They only sprang apart at the whistles coming from the woman still at the window.

“Wait. Alli. She’d go _ballistic_. With Sebastian, I mean,” said Lestrade. “She…wanted – Well. She’d _hurt_ him.”

“I believe so.”

“Once, she –”

“I know. I found him. It was awful. So she can’t be allowed to know. Happy now?” Sherlock waited for Lestrade to catch up.

He did and grinned. “Yeah. Very. For you. Awww! Come here again.” For another hug, and a muffled, “You’re a daddy.”

“ _Father_. And Seb’s Pa _pa_.” He sniffed, catching Lestrade’s mix of scents; Alli’s whisper of lilly, jasmine and gardenia softening the dying sandalwood and patcholiu base notes of Lestrade’s ancient ‘hairy chest in a bottle’ aftershave. If he could talk to Seb about this, Seb would have a bet on how long it take Alli to persuade Lestrade into something less old leather, separates the men from the boys-ish.

Lestrade released him. “You two. You don’t do anything the usual way, do you. That’d be too dull, I suppose.”

“That’s why we need you. A godfather should provide a note of normality.”

“Godfather. Me. _Oh God._ Alli’ll _kill_ me.”

“I do believe so. You’ll just have to keep her happy. She seemed happy, just now.”

Lestrade shot him a sharp look, then a sharper one as Jonas held the car door open for him. He’s torn between wanting to ask me if this is stolen, or if I’ve gone up in the world, thought Sherlock, hiding a grin.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Chapter Eighteen**

Gaining access to the vehicle recovery centre was insultingly easy, much more so than filling Lestrade in on Chiara’s death and the resulting lack of a police investigation and that there couldn’t be one, that they couldn’t alert a potential murderer to Bea’s existence. Lestrade had to stop his spluttering and repeated questions to sweet-talk the security guard at the huge, dark car park with security portacabin, some young man who hadn’t been able to join the police, Sherlock surmised.

The man was all agog to meet Lestrade and lap up stray crumbs about the huge drugs operation he’d just wrapped up – which Lestrade hinted was connected to his visit – and his upcoming trip to America to be feted for his astute recognition of a priceless, long-stolen artwork. The car was waved through while Lestrade and his acolyte waited for the officer on duty to get there from his rounds, or more probably cigarette break.

“Start with the brakes?” Sherlock suggested to Jonas when they found the section they’d been directed to, and came upon the wrecked car. “I don’t really know what I’m doing. How you go about sabotaging a car?” He ignored the eye roll and swivelled the squat metal light around as ordered and passed over various tools. “There’s no fluid in the brakes!”

“They drain the car completely when it comes in here, Sherlock.” Lestrade arrived with the car’s log. He pointed. “There was fluid. And no damage to the cables.”

“No damage,” confirmed Jonas. “In good condition.” He moved to the steering. Then the gears. And the accelerator. “I think it’s clean,” he said, finally, after a long and minute examination.

“There are other ways.” Sherlock frowned. “Shining lights into the driver’s side to make her lose control and hit the tree.” The pictures from the scene were awful. “Something on the road? Or in the road?”

“Witness reports, such as there are, don’t mention it,” Lestrade pointed out.

“They have to be re-interviewed.” Sherlock snapped pics of the witnesses’ contact details. He shivered. It was after dawn.

“Accidents do happen.” Lestrade touched his arm. “Driver error, driver fatigue, poor visibility…Why are you so sure?”

“There are things that don’t add up at the family company. I know something’s not right.” He shrugged.

“And when, _if_ , you find anything, you’ll go through the proper channels.” Lestrade didn’t make it a question. “If I find out my goddaughter’s father has acted wrongly… I think we’re done here. Come on. Let’s get you home. Back to your baby. God. Feels so weird to say that.”

“It’s actually not weird to think it. But nothing can happen to her. This…” He indicated the unlovely, freezing cold car dump. “It can’t…”

“It won’t. You won’t let it.” Lestrade looked as though another hug was imminent, so Sherlock hurried into the car. “I have to ask you about this,” Lestrade continued, following him in. “You, car and driver? Not that it doesn’t make sense. ”

Sherlock waited until they were clear of the security and the entrance before replying, “Engagement present.”

“Should’ve known.” Lestrade grinned. “Spoiling you, hey? Make the most of it. So. Am I presentable?”

“Hm?”

“Meet my goddaughter! From what you say, she’s high society, old money and all that. Can’t have her ashamed of me.”

“If I’m not, no one should be. You could wipe some of that oil off.”

“So could you. You haven’t gone up that much in the world, I see.”

Sherlock submitted to the poke in the side, then admitted he hadn’t. He surmised out loud that Lestrade had had his phone switched off all day.

“Yeah, I have actually. One reason and another. How d’you know?”

“I think a mutual friend, DI Carter, has been trying to get in touch with you. I had a run-in with him today. Yesterday.”

“Well, I don’t care if he arrested you, I’m not turning it on till I’m on duty. Oh, God.” He’d glanced at his travelling companion’s face. “What did you – No. Don’t care. Off duty. For another hour at least. And if it’s true and you really have got a kid and want me to be her godfather and I’m gonna have breakfast with you and meet her” – he glanced at Sherlock, who puzzled out the sentence, then nodded – “we’ll have to stop off. Here’ll do. Can’t meet her empty-handed.”

They pulled over at a small strip of shops, and Sherlock understood. “There won’t be much, if anything, open this time of the morning,” he observed, but a determined Lestrade was prowling the newsagent’s/minimart within moments.

“Here,” he said, minutes later, balancing nappies, a slim tube of cream and a thin pack of wipes. He found a roll of nappy bags and a drawstring bag to put it all in. “This will make a nice little travelling changing bag. And makes sure Beatrice knows it’s only a coming-round pressie, not a real godparent gift.” He frowned warningly at Sherlock, who nodded again. “Does she have a dummy?” Lestrade asked. He pointed at the choices, all gaudy plastic, some strange shapes.

“No. We don’t agree with them. They can cause deformation of the upper palate, leading to the dentition having… What?”

“Nothing. Carry on, Dad?”

“ _Father_.” He gave a reluctant grin too. And produced a second small packet of wet wipes, instructing Lestrade to make sure all of Alli’s distinctive perfume was wiped off. Lestrade snatched the offering and scowled but did as suggested. “Now where? Bea won’t want a bunch of flowers!”

Lestrade exchanged pleasantries with the man receiving the flower deliveries and wangled his way into the florist’s next door. “Not for Beatrice. For Martha. To celebrate being co-godparents. What?” He mimicked Sherlock’s tone. “She is, isn’t she? Don’t look so surprised. I _am_ a detective.” The delivery kid sneaked off, looking over his shoulder a little nervously. “And it’s not that hard to figure out. Sherlock, I know you. I may not understand your brain – don’t think anyone does – but I know your heart. And you’re a big softie.” The last was slotted on the end in a _mutter_ , but loud enough for him to catch. “Now grab a handful of gypsophila while I pick through these germinis.”

A bemused Sherlock grabbed some green stuff as ordered and listened in on Lestrade quizzing the shop owner and watched him suspiciously sniffing starfish-shaped flowers. A, “Look, Sherlock!” brought him over to a rectangular box filled with more flowers, some more star-shaped than others. He shrugged.

“Pentas! Butterfly pentas! And a nice bit of verbena! A planter for Beatrice’s window. To attract butterflies!” He shook his head at Sherlock’s ignorance. “It’ll attract hummingbirds too. That could be…”

“A challenge,” Sherlock replied, thinking of Beamish. “Oh, we’re an animal household. We already have a full-time cat, other part-time cats and a part-time grebe. She’ll appreciate the birds and the…bees?”

“Verbena _can_ attract bees!” And Lestrade launched into more technical conversation with the man, and it was ages before they could leave, as brightly bedecked as bridesmaids. Sherlock regarded the surprising inspector.

“I wasn’t always a city geezer, you know. I’m a country boy at heart.” Lestrade grinned, his teeth flashing white in the gloom of the car. “Oh, I’d love to take Beatrice back to the West Country, on holiday with my sisters’ kids. The family house is now a holiday home, and we redid the shed into a sort of dorm, so the kids just kip there, shift for themselves. It’s right near the front, the beach, that is, so… If you think she’d like it.”

“She’ll love it,” Sherlock assured him. He wondered for how long and how much Lestrade had wanted children. Seemed everyone he knew did. Interesting. He texted Seb to catch him up with the lack of events, and inform him they had a dishy DI guest for breakfast.

 _Make a change from toast_ came the enigmatic reply, and it took Sherlock a few seconds to puzzle out the joke.

Once inside 221, Lestrade gave what was obviously a special rap on the door of 221A, and a beaming Mrs Hudson came out. They hugged, Lestrade still clutching his presents. He presented the bouquet, to a chorus of exclamations. “I suppose this is the great news you couldn’t tell me yet!” he was quizzing as Sherlock carried on up the stairs. They were close? Seemed Alli might have a fight on her hands, for Lestrade. But hadn’t Seb said Mrs H and Mrs T… He gave up, went in search of his nearests and dearests. To find the male one in the kitchen, slightly wild-eyed, his attempt at smart clothes to show respect for his partner covered with a huge PVC London Underground apron.

“How do you know when sausages are done in this cooker? I’ve never cooked in a gas cooker before. Or an electric,” Seb hissed, offering out a tray of sausages he was poking cluelessly at. There were…a lot of sausages. Sherlock just betted that in the absence of his daily bringing him his usual chef-endorsed, organic, sustainably farmer bangers, he’d phoned up somewhere for a packet of each sort they sold. There was a whole orchard of tomatoes halved on the worktop, ready to grill. “Well? Guests!” Seb shook the tray.

“Sebastian.” Sherlock helped him shove the tray back in the oven and crank the dial up. “Use my method. Set the alarm and when it beeps, the food’s cooked.” He snatched the rolling pin, stepped on a chair, and clicked the smoke detector on in one smooth motion. “Done. Where’s our daughter?”

“Sherlock Holmes, only you could use an ionisation device as a cooking aid. She’s being nannied.” Seb let Sherlock lead him out of the kitchen. He tried to calm down. “Sorry. It’s just, Ma always has things nice for Pa, right from breakfast on. Sets the tone for the day. I wanted things to be perfect. Oh, wait.” He grabbed Sherlock and pulled him into a clinch, pulling him in by his arse to get them as close as possible. “They are now. Very.”

“Oh.” Sherlock buried his head in Seb’s neck, absolutely amazed someone, anyone, could think him being with them made things perfect. It didn’t seem…plausible. Seb pulled away to study him, so Sherlock shut his eyes. He felt the tip of Seb’s nose rub against his, then a wetness as Seb kissed it. The next thing he felt was a finger tracing the uptilting shape of his lips: he was smiling. Then two hands cracked his eyes open for him, and he looked at Seb’s face right in front of him, his flop of dark-brown fringe, his navy-blue eye and a hint of front teeth as his mouth twisted into a smile.

‘“You think I'm faultless to a T, my manner set impeccably, but underneath I am the same as you,”’ Seb whispered against his lips.

Sherlock had to think for a few seconds, and it took Seb’s humming the tune to cue him in. ‘“There's too much love to go around these days,”’ he replied.

“Indeed. We have to give them a listen later. You’re forgetting.” But there was no criticism, only a soft light in Seb’s eyes and a husk in his voice. “And we have to play them for Bea. So you think there was nothing wrong with the car?”

Seb’s conversational twists and turns no longer jolted Sherlock. He nodded.

“So you think there’s nothing –”

“No. Yes. I don’t know! But even if those thugs at the company had nothing to do with it, I still feel Avalon’s involved somehow. At the heart of it, even. The long-term financial adviser had a fatal accident not too long ago, as you said. That’s…” He shrugged, and pulled Seb’s apron off. Chinos and an off-duty polo shirt were better than the lurid plastic.

“Umm. I’ve been thinking.” Seb led him to the pile of research. “I wonder if Chiara wanted the company not just to add to the Avalon portfolio because she liked it, or whatever, but because of its processes and technologies? For her Foundation? Look at what the Foundation is involved in. It’s not just in vitro tissue and cell culture research, but molecular, computing and imaging to do away with animal-based testing and manufacturing techniques and animal experimentation in medical research.”

Sherlock looked again through the leaflet he’d been given at the protest. It seemed so long ago. He speed-read phrases on toxicity testing of new medical and veterinary surgery, treatments and diagnostics, and safety testing of non-medical products, and the alternatives to animal models. Going back to the Avalon Foundation documents, he found references to their cell culture project: single layers of one cell type and organ and spheroid cultures, three-dimensional structures which mimicked organs to observe normal and toxically challenged inter-cellular behaviour. Used in drug design it helped the number of compounds needing animal testing and the number of animals used overall. And, as Seb said, they were into computer molecular modelling and free easily accessible CD ROM and Internet databanks to reduce duplicate animal testing via the pooling of data.

“Could it be this?” Seb was watching Sherlock’s eyes flickering over the data. He pointed to a section. “Someone doesn’t like the Foundation’s in vitro tests being a ‘possible alternative to cancer-causing and genetically damaging drug trials’?”

“Is their tech that far along?” Sherlock wondered. “And look here, this research project into genetically mutated animals to study the role of these particular genes, and this to model this disease. Chiara presumably okayed those? She stood for humane and responsible animal research, it seems. We should examine all the patents Avalon holds. I bet some came from the research done by her Foundation. Maybe people didn’t like that.”

“Well, I think she was stalling on the selling in the Asian market until her in vitro or another process was accepted by the Chinese government. She was lobbying them for it, you know.”

“Seb, look at this name. That’s her ex-husband, one of the Foundation’s directors! And for a long time.”

“Why?” asked Seb. “Why would he still be on the board and drawing a salary? Blackmail? Him her? Maybe to not make a scandal over the divorce? Maybe she misbehaved. But they were married for ten years. That’s ages!”

“Yes, we need info on her ex,” agreed Sherlock.

“I think Beatrice’s playdate could help us there. Or rather her playdate’s nanny.” Frik, coming up behind them with a beautiful and morning-wriggling Bea in his arms, stopped at the male voice from the stairs.

“Sherlock, is it true you’ve got a good-looking blonde nanny?” came the West Country-muted-by-London tones, overridden by Mrs Hudson’s shushing. Lestrade, entering the living room, stopped in his turn on seeing the group. He grinned. “Hey, Frik,” was all he managed before staring openmouthed at the tiny baby who had thrown her arms around Sherlock’s and Seb’s necks, thus leaping from Frik to them with excited chirps and gurgles as she dragged them close and butted her head into their shoulders. In synch, they each raised a hand automatically to support her under her nappy, while their free hands cradled her nape and their heads bent down to kiss and nuzzle her.

“Ohh,” said Lestrade, coming forward with his arms rising of their own accord to the little girl.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Chapter Nineteen**

“He is a proper nanny, manny, rather! He comes highly recommended. With lovely references. Marie and I took them up…” Mrs Hudson’s twittering died off as she broke into the biggest smile at the scene unfolding. Beatrice twisted her still wobbly neck around to see the newcomer, pulling on her two fathers, her blue eyes wide with curiosity, and her lilting voice issuing monosyllabic orders until they turned her round. She regarded Lestrade for a second before beckoning him close with an imperious chubby arm. He came closer, and with a sound like, “Ha!” she jumped from Sherlock and Sebastian to him.

They all had their arms out to secure her; even Mrs Hudson was dashing forwards. There was no need: a transfixed Lestrade was holding her lying on her back in his arms, watching with wonder as she chirped a stream of sounds, then swung up a leg to suck on her toes. She offered her damp foot to Lestrade, pushing it to his mouth, and then squeaked and giggled in delight as he took it and nipped at her toes. Her tiny fingers grabbed at his collar, and his wonder-filled gaze briefly left the little girl to travel to her fathers. He looked hopelessly lost, and Sherlock nudged Seb to take a picture not just of the two’s first meeting, but of the very second their tiny princess claimed another willing and devoted slave. He could see the precise instance Lestrade lost his heart to their daughter. It was amazing.

“Now get us together!” Mrs Hudson patted at her hair and stood next to Lestrade, tickling Bea. “The godparents!”

“Proud godparents,” corrected Seb, clicking away.

Speechless godfather, thought Sherlock. “So, you believe me now?” he enquired of Bea’s godfather. “That I have a daughter?”

“ _Beautiful_ daughter,” and “Prettiest girl in London,” came the corrections from Seb and Mrs H.

“Yes. I do, yes.” Lestrade was whispering, unable to focus on holding his precious bundle and speech at the same time. He finally looked up. “I’m very sorry to hear of your loss, Sebastian. Sorry that… But she’s….” And that was it.

“She is, isn’t she.” Seb took pity on the hapless man. “Would you like to see her room? I’ll talk you through the plans for the nursery and playroom. We can’t decide whether to go the upper class or upper-middle route, you see.”

Frik coughed. “Perhaps her godfather would like to give Beatrice her bottle first.” They all helped the half-terrified, half-awestruck Lestrade to the sofa, and swabbed him down and gowned him up for the feeding. No one dared to speak, as he frowned at any noise, holding himself rigid cradling Bea and angling the bottle. Eventually Seb clicked a CD on, and the Brandenburg Concerto number 1 played. He turned it down slightly at the glare he received from the sofa.

“As I was saying, about Beatrice’s playdate?” Frik refused to whisper. “This is Noah’s nanny…”

“Oh, smooth! Nice one.” Seb nodded at the picture on Frik’s phone. “Nice _pram_ , I said, Sherlock.” He subsided.

“Who’s Noah?” asked Sherlock, glaring as fiercely as Lestrade.

“Noah is the son of Peter Vincent. And his partner, Hugh Lancaster.”

“Lancaster, the brand consultant? Clarity and courage, repositioning and reinvigerorating, creative and cost-effective? Hot air and halitosis?”

“Wait. Peter Vincent? Chiara’s ex? Is _gay_?” Sherlock ignored Seb and leapt to his chart on the wall.

“Him? Oh arr!” Lestrade’s country accent was strong as he chipped in, his interest overriding his intense focus. “I remember that case years ago. I wasn’t in the force at the time, but my first DI used to tell tales about the old days, before the Web and the Net, when things could just vanish. Now what?” This was addressed to Frik, who positioned a fed Beatrice over Lestrade’s muslin-square-draped shoulder for her back to be rubbed.

“Case?” Mrs Hudson’s hand was over her mouth, obviously hoping it wouldn’t impact on Adele.

“He was erm, fond of youngsters. Male youngsters, you could say.”

“Lestrade. You can speak freely in front of Mrs Hudson. She has more world knowledge than most of this street put together.” Sherlock made a ‘carry on’ gesture.

“There was this Young Conservative lad helping at the 1986 conference. A schoolkid. Upper Sixth. Only eighteen. Can’t remember his name. Well, the pair were caught at the hotel committing a lewd act which was in breach of the law.” He tried to cover Bea’s ears. She didn’t let him.

“Must have been a helluvan act,” Seb commented, his wide eyes showing his imagination soaring.

“No, just the legal age for homosexual sex then was twenty-one. So it was illegal. Chas Hanlon, my ex-boss, was called to the hotel, did the arrest, etc., and lived to see it all vanish.”

“But the Turners said Chiara’s father was the politician in trouble, look! Oh, come here. You can walk holding her, you know.”

And very carefully, Lestrade made his way over to the wall and studied Sherlock’s tree and graphs. He looked sad when Bea decided Sherlock could be her carriage for a while. “I vaguely remember that scandal, yeah. But the answer’s easy. Thatcher covered up for Jack Avery, his shenanigans.”

“Why?” Sherlock and Beatrice turned to catch the new music playing, something Baroque. Oh. Mozart’s '40.' “Did she like him?”

“Probably not him so much as her Bright Boys, like you’ve written there. He was one of those shiny newcomers she invested him. She wanted ’em all nice and clean, and turned a blind eye to a lot of stuff.”

“Not only that, made a lot of eyes blind, like with the disappearing arrest. I see.”

“Oh, the tales I’ve heard about the dark ages, before camera phones and instant Net stuff.” Lestrade nodded, and Sherlock didn’t point out Lestrade’s life was still as much like that as possible.

“From darkness to shiny and new, and you don’t get cleaner than whitewashing.” Seb pointed at the wedding photo of Chiara and Peter. “Chiara must have been a great cover.”

“They call it a beard, dear,” chipped in Mrs Hudson, and everyone except Sherlock turned to stare at her. After Florida, he would never be surprised at the woman’s knowledge and savvy.

“She was a good negotiator! She tidied up after her father, and in doing her bit for the family, got herself a Foundation to play with,” said Seb. “Except she probably wasn’t playing. We think she might have developed something which led to…things,” he explained to Lestrade.

“Sebastian.” Sherlock turned his head again to hear the early Romantic Beethoven starting. “Is this CD… _Classical Music for Dummies_? It seems to be playing a chronological selection of –”

“Yes, all right! I just didn’t want Beatrice to think I was lightweight,” Seb hissed. “You know I’m not very good at proper music. Not like you. But I will study. I’ll get my piano brought over and have proper classes again and… Why is he laughing? Lestrade, why are you –”

Just then, a series of staccato beeps rang out.

“Is this that modern stuff? Atonal?” asked Lestrade.

“No. We haven’t even got to Middle Romantic yet. That just means the sausages are ready.” Seb hurried into the kitchen, removed the tray of sizzling bangers, and shut the oven door with his hip in approved housewife fashion. He grabbed a wooden spoon, stepped onto the chair, and whacked the alarm to turn it off. “Oh. Toms.” He shoved those into the oven. “I’ll set the alarm for half the time,” were his words before he stepped up again, and hit the ceiling smoke alarm less hard. Sherlock lounged against the doorframe, watching the show. Beatrice laughed as if it were all arranged for her.

“Aww.” Lestrade elbowed Mrs Hudson who giggled and replied, “I know. Isn’t it soppy?”

“What?” asked Sherlock, looking from one to the other as they stared at him. “What is?”

“You in love,” said Lestrade, shaking with laughter. “Always wondered what your face would look like then. Now I know. Cheers. Cheers, Sebastian.” He held out his arms, and Bea allowed him to take her and croon to her, swaying her to the music.

“And _I’m_ soppy,” Sherlock muttered, glad Mrs Hudson took over breakfast. Mrs Hudson’s presence, it was a far cry from mornings at 221B pre-Sebastian. Those hadn’t included England’s most beautiful and intelligent baby, her manny drawing up some new and improved childcare training schedule, her doting godfather telling her all about Somerset and the delights that awaited her, including, unbelievably, his mother, there, her godmother discussing christening clothes with her alleged ladyfriend who’d brought over more research. They certainly hadn’t included the most important, his co-parent and fiancé, currently subtly wrestling for kitchen control with their non-housekeeper and arguing the case for counter cyclical liquidity regulations to a financial journalist, his phone tucked into his shoulder as he rammed a bottle brush into his daughter’s feeding bottles to sterilise them. His daughter, whose happy chirrups were the background to it all. He wished suddenly John could be there to see it, and Oliver and Rose. Perhaps his own parents might even…

“Have to dash; the beeps mean the toms are cooked, and the sausages have cooled enough to eat now,” was Seb’s way of ending the phone interview. Frik did the honours in turning off the alarm, muttering that the entire house needed proper alarms, and he’d get Benjamin in to wire it up. After Bea’s walk.

“So she doesn’t go in a baby chair at the table?” Lestrade asked, more than happy to hold Bea rather than eat.

“Not until her back muscles are more developed,” her nanny explained. “She could go down into a basket or playpen, but she prefers to be at the centre, talk to people. She’s a born communicator.”

“Atto,” announced Bea, waving, and a second later Beamish’s black-and-white form weaved its way in from the window. He stopped at Lestrade and gave him a sniffing.

“ _G_ atto,” corrected Sherlock.

“ _Il_ gatto,” added Seb. Smugly.

“Studying?” enquired Sherlock.

“A bit, yes. If our daughter’s bilingual, as evidence would suggest, I don’t want to be left behind. Beamish, Detective Inspector Lestrade. Beamish.”

“So you’ve got a baby, a cat and a dog?” Lestrade asked, holding still for Beamish, now on his lap, to pin him down by the shoulders and inspect him.

“No, no dog,” said Sherlock.

“What’s that dog, then?” Lestrade pointed into the living room. “Looks like… It’s a ruddy guide dog, Sherlock!”

“Oh, Lord.” Seb was gloomy. “Beamish is a bit of an animal-napper, Inspector, and seems to have outdone himself this time.”

“Prince!” called Mrs Hudson, and the dog barked. “Sherlock, it’s old Mr Barr’s guide dog. You know, he lives at the end of the road. There must be a problem. Did Beamish tell him he could come here when he needs help? Come on, Marie. Let’s see.” And she poured their tea into travel mugs Sherlock didn’t know he had, and they set off.

“Right,” said Seb, shaking his head. “City living. In Hampstead Beamish contented himself with phoning the Hotline whenever he spotted an urban fox. But this isn’t Kansas. Well.”

“Look, back to the case.” Sherlock riffled through the piles of papers. “Do you feel the problem’s connected to the Avalon Foundation, not the company? Nothing to do with the financial guru who died? Maybe the running of the Foundation, such as embezzlement?”

“Those names look solid, but Pa’s checking that out, on the QT. He feels he owes it to…me,” Seb finished quickly. “More likely to be due to some scientific process or technology or discovery they’ve made or harnessed from some company or work they took over. Maybe something that could have a far-reaching application? For instance, this article talks about the company’s lab doing research into the genetic differences between races, finding black skin and hair age slower than Caucasian, for one thing. Imagine if that line of study was…extended, applied…”

“We’ll need scientists, maybe someone on the inside, to know what they’ve been doing exactly, and what it’s being used for. Or licensed. I don’t know,” Sherlock admitted.

“There’s one thing I can’t follow,” said Lestrade, setting Bea down carefully in her playpen and dangling her ancient misshapen beanbag orange sun toy for her and Beamish to play with. “If her mum was so opposed to all that testing on animals, like you’ve been saying, and so wanted to take over that organic company to get their friendly products or hide Avalon’s testing, why even go selling in a market that demands all that testing in the first place? Why bother? Seems, well, hypocritical, and a lot of trouble, trying to deal with it.”

“They don’t, not yet. It’s a new thing. Will be,” Seb tried to explain. “Any company would be foolish to ignore Asia in its long-term planning: China alone has two-hundred-and-forty million possible consumers. The World Bank predicted strongest markets for 2020 are China, the USA, Japan, India, Germany and Indonesia. And Avalon has started researching into products for the Asian market, such as massage products and skin-whitening stuff.”

“Which could be another possibility. Maybe some industrial espionage thing?” Sherlock was guessing.

“Well, it seems a big departure all of a sudden, that’s all.”

“That’s a fair point,” commented Sherlock. “And I don’t believe Chiara wanted to sell in China, if all the stalling and trying to lobby for alternative testing protocols is any clue.”

“So her mother was in favour. But why? You know us coppers, Sherlock. We keep asking why until we get to the bottom of it. Why now? The company’s been around for yonks, been content to dominate the markets it sells in. Did the company need a new market? Were they losing money, or something?”

“Seb?” Sherlock prompted.

But Seb, having grabbed Sherlock’s buzzing phone and seen the name of the message’s sender, was busy reading a text. “It…would seem so,” he replied. “Because yes, it was Adele who was pushing to expand in the Far East, to get in early in that lucrative market.” He showed them the message. From Amanda. “She’s got at the Avalon board meeting minutes now. And yes, Chiara was opposed to profiting that way. But it seemed they did need money, because it was _her_ who approached their major shareholder, and said Avalon would be interested in selling out to them. _She_ was trying to get them to take over the company.”

“What, _Chiara_ was behind Vevey’s pressuring the family to sell out to them?” Sherlock was astonished.

“Umm. The company her grandfather started and built, the company her mother dedicated her whole life – and most of Chiara’s – to. Avalon sold them a 30% parcel in the seventies, when inflation and taxation bit hard, and under the terms of the sale the family has to give them right of refusal if they want to sell their remaining 50% stake. The remainder’s owned by other holders. But yes, the minutes prove Chiara was in bed with the Swiss multinational, trying to broker a deal.”

They were all silent for a minute. Sherlock flipped through some of the articles they had on Adele d’Avalos. From early shots of her swinging her red, white and blue tote bag with her wireless on full blast as she shopped in the West End, shrieking to her friends, to her habitual annual appearances at every London event from Chinese New Year to the Wimbledon final to the Proms, she was proud of her British links. This attempt to sell off a fiercely national institution such as Avalon would have caused a bigger family rift than anything which had gone before.

“Well, sorry to say it, Sebastian, but it seems your ex-girlfriend got greedier as she got older,” Lestrade said. “Maybe she, well, needed to think of her child’s future.”


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Chapter Twenty**

A rare sight: Seb blushing.

“Because I’m thinking she was setting up an exit strategy.” Lestrade paused a few moments to make sure Bea, butting Beamish’s stomach with her head, was all right. “And if the old woman sold her shares and took the cash, it wouldn’t be that long before it got left to her daughter. No one would be expecting the daughter to go first. Sorry to mention the death.”

“She wasn’t like that. She was kind and warm. And my family would have given her whatever she asked for. If she ever asked for anything. Which she had no need to do, being considerably richer than…I am. She has legal title to her mother’s 50% shares, currently valued at six billion pounds. That’s enough for anyone.”

“And that’s come down to your daughter, yeah?”

Oh God. Was Lestrade thinking Seb a suspect? “The will’s vanished, Lestrade.” Sherlock butted in. “We don’t know her provisions. But yes, logically, Bea’s next of kin.”

“What have you done to locate the will? Is it misplaced? You’d be surprised how often that happens, no coordination between people.” Lestrade shook his head.

“Oh.” Sherlock considered. “Seb, we should speak to her maid. The old woman you met.”

“I’ll call.” Oliver, presumably.

“So much grief over such an angel,” Lestrade muttered, tickling Bea.

“I know. That’s why we have to solve this.”

“If there’s anything to solve. I mean, you went haring off after that company takeover story, and that was nothing,” Lestrade pointed out.

And her car seemed to be fine, Sherlock mentally added.

“She went back to her family. To her village. Italy,” Seb announced, a minute later. “I’m getting the deets from the lawyer.”

“Who we also need to speak to.”

“Heads up.” Seb skimmed Sherlock’s ringing phone over to him. Amanda? She’d just texted! And was now in the area and wanted to meet.

“What, now?” Sherlock looked around the room. “Coffee at Speedy’s suit you? Fine.” He disconnected. “I guess it’s something she didn’t want to mention on the phone.”

“Sherlock. Always naïve.” Seb shook his head.

“Oh. Fancies him, does she?” Lestrade shook his too. “Whoever she is, she won’t get much change out of him.”

“Umm. Particularly not with me third wheeling. Come on, Sherbet. Get your coat. You haven’t pulled,” replied Seb.

“Please stop talking about me as if I weren’t… Oh. You think she…and I…and…”

“I’ll walk you down. Not spying, I have to go to work,” Lestrade assured him, having a hard time saying good-bye to his goddaughter. Frik eventually took her away, claiming it was exercise time.

“The coffee here’s similar to yours,” Seb commented in Speedy’s once they’d despatched Lestrade.

“I think it is the same,” Sherlock replied. “We do, did, John I mean, shop here a bit.”

“A tough but sensitive blond and now a smart, sexy blonde in your life. Are you trying to make me…”

Sherlock twisted around to see why Seb had stopped speaking, what he was looking at. Then wished he hadn’t. A tall, recently slimmed-down man, the well-cut overcoat helping, was standing there, blocking off their view of and access to the main section of the café in a way that would have had Frik presumably reaching for his katana. Sherlock wished he had one himself. He’d have used it to knock the man’s supporting-joist umbrella away, make him stop leaning cross-ankled on it. It would be fun to see go arse over umbrella tip. Although the look of disdain he wore at his surroundings at the moment was marginally amusing. Things never stayed that way for long with him though.

“Brother _dear_.” Sherlock’s greeting was pure saccharine.

“Sherlock. Sebastian.” Deep disinterest.

“The waiter’s called Tom,” Sherlock replied, in case Mycroft wanted to go for broke, name everyone in the place.

“I won’t have anything, thank you.”

“What do you want. I’ve no patience for your posturing. Not this early in the morning. Or any time, really.”

“Good morning, Mycroft. How are you?” Seb’s greeting could have sounded bright and friendly, but he was rubbing his jaw and gazing at Mycroft’s. “Long time, no cliché. Can I tempt you to a seat?” He moved a little closer to Sherlock as if making room.

“I shan’t stay.”

“Oh, ’bye then.” Being with Mycroft, especially when Mycroft had the sour, pained look on, always turned him into a teenager. “Just come to offer your congrats, I expect.” He interlaced his hand with Seb’s.

“No, actually. I’ve come to warn you to back off.”

“I beg your pardon?” Seb beat Sherlock to it. His voice was calm, but his stillness betrayed his readiness.

“Oh good heavens, not…that.” Mycroft twirled his raised umbrella in a small, supercilious circle at…them. “And I’d ask to speak to my brother alone, but I understand it would be pointless. You’re quite the…duo, aren’t you.”

“Anything you feel you have to say to me, you may say before Sebastian.”

Seb shot him a look. Yeah, that had come out a bit nineteenth century. He imagined the fun Seb would have imitating it. He almost smiled.

“Fine. Back off from your current investigation. Stop your poking and prying and sticking your silly, uninformed nose in where it isn’t wanted and certainly isn’t needed, and where it might actually cause harm. Oh and yes.” He raised his voice over Sherlock’s splutter. “I’m telling you for your own good. We mightn’t see eye to eye on matters, but you’re my brother, and I would rather not see you hurt.”

“Mycroft.” Sherlock couldn’t keep the rising incredulity from his voice. “Are you threatening me? Are you that stupid?”

“Threatening? Of course not. Not even warning. Just looking out for you, as always, whether you like it or not.” He paused a second as other customers settled at a table behind him. Sherlock recognised one, a neighbour. “Because if you continue turning over d’Avalos stones, you mightn’t like what crawls out from underneath.”

And with that he slid an envelope free of his coat and tossed it on to the table top. The envelope was innocuous looking, slim, brown. Not thick enough for documents; just big enough to hold a large photograph. A simple photo at that, but one which when Sherlock tipped it out, made him freeze as his blood stopped running and the air was sucked from the room. It was like falling down a dark tunnel into the prison of the past. Seb gasped and grabbed his hand, squeezing hard, then rubbing his thumb over the back. He looked up at Mycroft, and when he spoke, his voice was flat and quiet, all banter gone. It was deadly.

“I suggest you piss off. Right now. Don’t make me beat the crap out of you. Oh, actually? Do. It’ll count as exercise for the day. Save me schlepping to the gym.” He rose to his feet, never breaking contact with Sherlock, even when he stepped between the brothers.

“Sherlock? _Sebastian?_ And… _Mr_ Holmes? Wow. The trifecta.” Amanda approached, looking from one to the other, Mycroft trying to sneer down at someone his own height, Seb preparing to get them banned from their local, and him, rooted to the table.

“Ah, Ms Hamilton. Lovely to see you, even in such…less than fitting surroundings.” Mycroft turned a thin smile on Amanda. “I do hope you’re not mixed up with these…people in their…current project, shall we say.” Again his umbrella did the gesturing for him, making Seb tense as if preparing for an attack.

“Who, me? I’m here for the full English. It’s famed throughout Central London!” Amanda even laughed a little. “Oh, and some current mixing up, yes.” Now her voice was as firm as Seb’s. “Problem?”

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t advise it.”

“What, because of the cholesterol? Oh, I’ll be fine. I’ll have a hot drink with it to cut the grease.”

“That wasn’t what I –”

“Yes, you’re right. I’d better go for a run this evening. Burn off the carbs. I’ll be fine.” Her nod was dismissive.

“Yes, Mr Holmes was just leaving. Before he donates another tooth for our collection.” Sherlock wasn’t looking at that point, but he would have betted Seb was in a stance his entire Krav Maga class would have recognised and approved of. Maybe Mycroft understood it too, because with a sickly, “Ms Hamilton, gentlemen,” he turned and left.

“Sherlock, are you okay? What is it?” Amanda rubbed his back, bending over him. “Oh. I needn’t have come.”

“What, because you’ve burnt your boats in Whitehall, insulting Mycroft?” spat Seb, sitting next to Sherlock and shrugging off Amanda to hug him.

“My loyalties are with Sherlock. And I think if you doubted that, you wouldn’t have let me in on this.” She stared at him, and he dropped his gaze with a grunt, focussing on Sherlock.

“I meant because you already know my news. About the court case? The date being set?” She pointed at the photo still on the table like a poisonous snake, then opened her folder and placed…an identical one next to it. “Snap.”

“What the fuck?” Seb flicked the duplicate away, as if that made any difference.

“Part of my research into the company is checking for existing or pending law suits? And when I came across the private prosecution brought by the deceased Ms Chiara d’Avalos Avery Vincent against the toy boy slash pseudo-stepson slash artist slash private banking guru slash full stop, I came…” She was thrust aside as Sherlock suddenly hefted himself to his feet, using the table for support, and pushed past her. He wasn’t aware of how, but the picture was in his hand.

“Sherlock needs air,” he heard Seb apologise in his wake, and couldn’t make out any of Amanda’s reply, as by then he was out in Baker Street, yelling, “Mrs Hudson!” at the top of his lungs, repeatedly, until she emerged frightened from a few doors down. “221B, now!” he bellowed, pointing the way. In a moment he was in front of his research wall, and a minute later his landlady joined him. He swallowed, trying for calm, glad that Frik had taken one look at his face and removed Beatrice from the flat.

“Ah. Mrs Hudson. Care to tell me what, or who, Adele’s been up to lately?”

As she stared, confused and a little alarmed, he grabbed his knife and the poisonous photo and skewered the latter to the wall with the former. It was a swift, deadly movement.

“Hey. Hey, mate. Chill. Relax. Chillax. Breathe. Other clichés.” Seb was there, pale but composed, proffering a brown paper bag for him to breathe into. Sherlock pushed it aside, noticing absently that as Seb had said, it was decorated with designs. He caught a glimpse of a smiley face topped with a mop of curls on one side and the words _We all inhabit this cliché. We all breathe the_ – on the other. He betted the next words were same cliché.

“I’m fine. Well, not really, but…” He let Seb put a warm, firm arm around him.

“Better now?” Seb moved as close as he could.

“Actually yes. Mrs Hudson? Thoughts?”

“Oh, I never believed that rumour about her toy boy! He’s her new financial adviser and her sort of stepson, an artist who’s painted that series of pictures of her.”

“Related how? From her side? You said she went abroad and got married.”

“Yes. Scotland. Gretna Green. They were all doing it then, taking up with these men against their parents’ wishes! She married that music agent man, that producer.”

“And they had a child? He’s too young.”

“No. He married again, a lot later, and then had a son.” She pointed at the picture.

“His name?”

“Oh, he’s a chameleon, that one. Soon as his mother – much younger than his dad – married again, he took his stepdad’s name, Dr Armstrong-Lang. And now he’s an artist, he signs himself _VT_ , his real initials, so he’s known in the art world as Vite. It means…” She responded to his look. “But his original surname’s Trevor, like his father, Andrew Trevor, like I told you, Sherlock, and his first name’s –”

“Victor. Victor Trevor.” He spoke heavily, slowly, forcing himself free of the past, leaning against Seb and squeezing the hand a still-uncomprehending Mrs Hudson slipped into his as they all looked at the photograph of his ex. The man he’d become involved with after Seb, when nothing mattered anymore and he cared about nothing and no one, especially himself. _Victor Trevor._

“Sherlock…knew him. At university,” Seb said quietly. Mrs Hudson’s free hand was covering her mouth, and her big brown eyes were wider at the news. She could obviously interpret ‘knew’ as the biggest mistake he’d ever made. Or let happen to him. She’d be right.

“It’s… Not now. Let’s focus,” he muttered, straightening up. He didn’t know whether to leave the photo there, to desensitise himself or rip it off and burn it. Seb solved the dilemma for him: he yanked the picture free and handed it to Mrs Hudson, jerking his head towards the kitchen.

“I’ll see to it, dears. I’ll put the kettle on. You can have a tot in yours.”

He felt tears come to his eyes, not at the pain of the past but at the balm of the present. Seb pulled him into a brief hug, then let him go, searching his gaze. “I’m fine. Don’t make me into a …anything I’m not. Lots of people have had disastrous relationships,” he said.

Seb led him by the hand to the sofa. “Umm. And they deal with them when they’re ready, not have them thrust in their face. I won’t have that. We can stop now. Right now.”

“Sebastian.” Sherlock ranged his gaze around the room, the made-over living room with furniture arranged to make space for Seb’s desk and PC and books, and Beatrice’s playpen and toys. “We can’t. We’re not.”

“Well, if there’s any interviewing or whatever has to be done, it’s me. Or Frik. Or Alli. Not you. Agreed?”

“Funny.” Sherlock rested his head on Seb’s shoulder. “Strange: we’ve been looking into Chiara’s life when we should have been looking into Adele’s. What’s the nature of the case Chiara was bringing?” Although he could guess.

Seb kissed the top of his head, then went to retrieve the file Amanda had given him. His phone rang, and as he spoke to his father, his face fell into deeper lines.

“Tell me. Tell us,” Sherlock amended, to include Mrs Hudson with her tea tray. “You want to help, help free someone from the clutches of a leech and a user who preys on vulnerable people, don’t you.”

“Oh, Sherlock.” Her eyes filled with tears as she understood all the things he wasn’t saying. She was joining the dots to things he’d let slip about his past, he knew.

“It was Pa. The maid we wanted to speak to is dead. Chiara’s old family retainer was run over and killed. They say she looked the wrong way crossing the road, not used to continental traffic after so long away. She died on the spot.”

“What? When?”

“Yesterday night.”

“Oh, boys!”

He patted Mrs Hudson and asked Seb, “The lawyer told you?”

“No. Told Pa. Strange thing. He, the lawyer, has sort of gone into hiding since Chiara died and especially since handing Bea over. And why? Because Chiara told him to. Paid him handsomely. To cut himself off and not communicate with anyone. Except –”

“Your father. She trusted him.”

“Trusted him…to protect her daughter against…threats. And another strange thing. Well, not so strange, actually. I’ve long wanted to remove Victor Trevor from the face of the earth. Now it seems I have even more reason.” And Seb’s face, set hard, chilled Sherlock a little.


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

**Chapter Twenty-One**

"Seb, don’t get ahead of things. Show me those documents.” Sherlock nodded at the envelope.

“Boys, is it all right if I get back? Only Poor Mr Barr couldn’t get out of the bath, not even with Prince’s help, and I don’t suppose Beamish can manage. I suppose Frik and Bea went to help, but they don’t know the tricks. I should –”

“Of course.” Sherlock caught her hand as she patted his shoulder. “I didn’t mean to…frighten you.”

“Me? Take more than that, dear.” She snorted. She understood. He watched her face crumple a little before she firmed it. “And if this beast had anything to do with Bea’s mum’s death, and if he’s got Adele in his clutches, like that Rasputin with the Tsarina, or that poor Barbara Woolworth lady, he’ll have to be stopped and probably put down for the good of society. That’s all there is to it, and you know you can count on me.” She nodded and left, Seb staring after in amazement. Sherlock reflected that Seb really didn’t know…enough about Mrs Hudson.

“Seb. Get Oliver, so we can ask him what he knows about the company’s ‘financial adviser.’ And the previous one.”

“Will do. You drink your tea. Good job you’re not driving. I think there’s a smidge of tannin in that whisky.”

Beatrice’s faded old toy was on the floor, and Sherlock picked it up, tossing the ragged orange ball from hand to hand as he thought. The thought that if Seb had brought his gun over from the safe at his Hampstead house, then he, Sherlock, was the least well-armed occupant of 221 made him smile.

“Pa wants to Skype. Here we go.”

Sherlock lobbed the soft toy back into the playpen and joined Seb at the desk. “Love that Skype name.” He huffed out a laugh.

“Well, seen Pa’s?”

Sherlock was laughing as Oliver’s face filled the screen against a background of what looked like huge animal skins hanging and swaying gently in a slight breeze. Oliver seemed to be sitting cross-legged on the ground. Maybe some sort of City ritual?

“Pa, are you hiding in Ma’s fur coat room?” Seb enquired, and Sherlock really had to turn away to giggle.

“Well, yes, that could be said to be the case. To a greater extent. So I haven’t got long. I don’t know a great deal about the family’s private banking practices. I can get the info.”

“Oh, so we’re not talking about the Avalon company?” Seb clarified.

“No. Clive handled the dividends from the family stake. The annual runoff from their 50%. Investments, offsetting, etcetera. Been advising her and her husband for years. She’s an extremely HNWI.”

“High net worth individual. US banking term,” Seb explained to Sherlock.

“Hello, Sherlock. Everything all right?” asked Oliver.

“Yes, thanks. That’s…asset management, then?”

“Yes, well done, you. You’re picking up the lingo. Clive was a traditionalist. Advised the old tried and tested YHA to soak up the surplus, more fun than paying tax.”

“Yachts, horses, art,” translated Seb.

“The family paid a great deal into their Foundation, of course. Always a great use of excess. And I do understand their art collection, which they loan to museums and shows, is famous. Stuff even I’ve heard of!”

“About Clive,” Seb began. “He…passed away?”

“Umm. Poor sod. In his prime. Sixty-five. Still, he died doing what he loved. Heart attack, overdoing it at Cheltenham.”

“The…Ladies’ College?” Seb ventured, horrified.

“The _racecourse_ , dolt. Gold Cup. He had a weak heart and was yelling on the d’Avalos horse, Mythic Beauty.”

“Well, beauty is no myth,” said Seb, parroting the Avalon slogan.

“I don’t know who’s advising now, actually. Interest – Rose! Here! You’ve…spoilt the surprise!”

There was a jostling as Rose flung the door open, and Oliver fought to close the connection and just switched off the camera.

“Surprise?”

And left the mic on.

“I was…on Web cam to Harrods’s furriers for an anniversary present for you. But now you know. Tutt!”

“Oh, no matter. You can get me the BMW Series 6 convertible instead!”

“But you’ll know about that too!”

“Yes, but I’ll like that. I picked up some brochures, actually. I’ll come in to the City with you, and we can stop by the…”

“Wow. Sorry.” Seb gestured at the screen. “Is that…our future?”

“If…we’re lucky.”

“I think...we are.”

So they had a tiny break from the case to cuddle, taking advantage of the empty flat, until Seb sprang up to look for his ringing phone. “Sir Alan,” he whispered, recognising the ring tone. “I did float the idea of getting together a consortium of investors made up of Shad’s platinum portfolio clients to challenge Vevey to buy the family out.”

“But you’d be selling out Beatrice’s inheritance!”

“ _Sher-bet_ , not really to buy the family out, just to get Vevey to…raise their game, shall we say. Then that should hike the share price of their shares and the 20% already floated, which the client consortium will have been advised to buy into.” He winked at Sherlock.

“Oh. So it’s bluff?”

“Misdirection. They would be buying Avalon shares. Oh come on. As if anyone could seriously challenge that Swiss giant!”

“You know,” Sherlock said, considering Seb and Oliver’s savvy, “you should manage Bea’s dividends, when…this is solved, and everything’s out in the open. Okay, it’s private banking, but isn’t that…”

“Boring. I’ll certainly supervise, audit, but that line of work’s just playing it safe, being cautious, hedging against… Sir Alan! Any news?”

Feeling dumb, and also wondering why Seb had to call his own godfather by his honorific, Sherlock did the housewife thing and washed the breakfast dished while Seb worked. Really, he’d be getting an award for good behaviour soon, he reckoned, making a fresh pot of tea.

“Sir Alan’s been Alaning,” Seb announced, smiling approvingly as he sipped his cup, his face falling at the lack of biscuits.

“Oh yes?”

“Digging, unobtrusively. He’s a little surprised actually: Avalon’s rumoured to be going off-shore, trialling it first through the family share before the company.” He dropped this in a hushed whisper.

“Erm…”

“Taking the off-shore route! Tax havens. Aggressive measures to avoid tax. So obvious. No class. No flair. Seems a certain Mr Trevor has been applying to become a client of Jupiter Tax Strategies. It’s a company which umbrellas several affiliate companies.” He grabbed a pencil and sketched on a square of kitchen roll. “You take a company, all with head office in Jersey. You’re its only shareholder and you pay your money into it. The net assets rise and are then a capital gain, taxed at 18% and not income, taxed at 40%.”

“But if they’re assets, don’t they have to stay in the company, to make more assets?” Sherlock was trying.

Seb tapped his nose. “The company lends you your own money in the form of an interest-free loan with no pay-back date.”

“Wow. That’s some cashback. And can…he do this?”

“Umm, if the parent company accept him. Which they will. Charge him a stonking fee to save paying even more stonking tax.”

“Is that legal?”

“Well, it’s morally bankrupt, but it’s avoidance, not evasion.”

“There’s a difference?”

“As Denis Healey, Labour chancellor in the 1970s, put it: ‘The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison wall.’”

  
“That’s rather good.”

  
“It’s a motto of many City banks. In fact we have it on a tapestry.”

  
“No you don’t.”

  
“No we don’t. But I’ve often thought I’d like to.”

  
Sherlock understood all that ‘private assets looking after’ was too tame for Seb, as he’d said.

  
“But, this, _this_ is class. _Pure_ class. Read this.”

  
Sherlock read the description of the private prosecution Chiara and her lawyer were bringing against Victor. All his aliases were listed, making him seem shifty already, never mind that he was described as preying on a mentality fragile elderly lady, mentally unsound following her husband’s death, and exerting undue influence to abuse, that is financially exploit her. It was a horrifying evocation, not mitigated by the legalese.

  
‘“The plaintiff merely seeks restitution of the gifts visited upon the accused and simply seeks one pound in damages!”’

  
“Class. You can’t buy that.” Seb beamed proudly. “Beatrice has a fantastic heritage.”

  
“And fathers. What do you think will happen?” Sherlock tapped the papers.

  
“The logical thing would be to request Adele be made a ward of court, request tests to assess her mental health.”

  
“Which I bet she’d refuse. Feisty thing.” He jerked his head towards the wall of evidence. “Which is probably why Chiara was promoting the selling off of the family’s shares in the business to a foreign company – trying to drive Adele demented! She was clever. I wonder what these ‘gifts’ are.”

  
“That’s the next step. We need to get the documents, the prep work for the case. Maybe the lawyer would send a copy to Pa if he…”

  
Seb broke off, and they both eyed the rather wet nanny and his damp charge and their damp cat entering the flat.

  
“Have you…” Sherlock began.

  
“Don’t.” Frik held up a hand. “Let’s just say if I never see another emaciated naked blind pensioner trapped in a bubble bath being pulled out by his guide dog, it’ll be too soon.” He took the towel offered and blotted Bea dry. She squeaked in joy, making it into a game of peek-a-boo, before helping him dry Beamish, mostly by rolling on him. Sherlock looked at the photos of Adele and Chiara, tracing their features in Bea. He was glad she had Seb’s navy-blue eyes rather than the brown ones on the maternal side, not because of the colour, but because of the intensity. Adele’s deep, penetrating stare in particular was always remarked on in interviews and profile pieces: she sat straight-backed, both feet planted firmly on the floor.

  
“Dog,” he thought he heard Bea say as he put her in the playpen.

  
“Put her on her front, not her back,” ordered her nanny, towelling himself off.

  
“Why?” Sherlock and Seb asked immediately.

  
“If she’s on her back too much, she’ll rub herself another bald spot.”

  
“Oh no!” Sherlock exclaimed, bending to her.

  
“It’s natural.” Frik shrugged. “Hers is just growing in. You can’t really see it, with those curls. She’s lucky with the thick waves.”

  
“Like yours,” said Seb to Sherlock, approvingly.

  
“So she needs tummy time.” Frik was good at ignoring their soppiness. Bea seemed happy with an old cloth picture book as they filled Frik in, Seb skirting delicately around Sherlock’s past history with the suspect, although Frik shot him a hard glance, and Sherlock felt he’d be in for a grilling later.  
“You think he knew Chiara was on to him, so he killed her.” The stark question in the flat accent made it even more obscene. “Are you thinking he killed her father too?” That made it worse. “What exactly does he do? What kind of life does he lead?”

“Parasite. Unscrupulous. Eye to the main chance,” replied Seb.

“For a living? Okay. On paper? What would he write on his tax returns?” Frik sought for language Seb could connect with.

“Artist…” Seb raced for the laptop to look him up.

“Hey. You have to be one hundred percent on this,” Frik cautioned Sherlock. “No emotions. Focussed on task.”

“Try one hundred and fifty.” He let Frik see the icy steel in his eyes. “Emotionless enough?”

“Anger’s an emotion. So’s the thirst for revenge.”

“I’ll do whatever we all agree.”

“Well.” Seb’s voice and presence broke their deadlock, and Frik clapped Sherlock on the shoulder. “Look at these sort of photograph paintings of Adele d’Avalos Avery. Part of the Martha Hudson collection. I don’t know much about art, but I know when it’s shite.”

“They’re what, photographs of events in the social calendar? With the colours manipulated and the main subject, here Adele, painted over, or painted in?” Sherlock tried to figure them out. “To…highlight…something?”

“I think Sebastian’s critique said it all,” Frik said.

“Well, we don’t have the specialised knowledge or training to appreciate this,” Seb summed up. “But I know where we can find it. Just let me change…”

 

And he’d changed into clothes his ex-wife had bought him, Sherlock realised a half hour later, when the two of them were dropped off at a boutique photography gallery to meet its owner and curator, currently trying to reopen after a slight forced closure following an unwitting involvement in a drugs case. The owner in question was a tall brunette last seen in a certain DI’s bed: Seb’s ex-wife Alli.

 _You didn’t tell him about Lestrade?_ asked Alli’s darting glance at him.

 _As if_ , replied Sherlock’s scrunched face.

 _Don’t mention our daughter_ , exhorted Seb’s eyes.

 _D’uh_ , replied Sherlock’s raised eyebrow. This was so complex. He was suddenly aware he didn’t get to bed last night.

“That poisonous little snake. That bastard little worm. That fucking scuzzball slimeball!” exploded Alli once they’d explained they needed her help because Victor Trevor was seemingly exploiting and profiting from some poor woman’s weakness.

“Allegra Phillipa Chamberlyn! I thought you were going cold turkey on that ridiculous US teens’ show. Have you backslidden?” Seb enquired, arching a brow at her.

“Can it, Peaches,” she replied. “Sherlock, spill. Oh, don’t look at me like that. Either of you. I know he did this, or something similar to you too. I was there, remember. Oh, okay, still in college while you were living God knew where, but I heard and saw enough.”

“I…”

“Don’t, Sherlock. You don’t have to talk about it.” Seb turned to him, throwing a glare at Alli. “Not if it makes you –”

“Or do.” Alli leant forward from her cushion, having given the folding chairs to them, claiming she preferred that. She put her hands on Sherlock’s knees, and he felt the warmth in front of him, the compelling power of her sherry-brown eyes, and knew Seb was a solid wall at his side.

“Photographs. He always took photos,” came his opener, surprising him. “It started when Seb left. Obviously.”

“What happened after I finished uni?” asked Seb, quietly.

“There was no _after_ , you twat!” cried Alli. “Sorry. Just, _men_ , you know, Sherlock?” She made a big deal out of pouring him tea from the flask. It helped, as did being with them, the drama and the domestic, the latter wrapping around the former. As it did around their cases nowadays, he realised.

“I soon understood he ingratiated himself by playing on my feelings, mainly my self-loathing, but realisation, understanding: that’s not the answer. Not the end. He got drugs easily for me. I wanted them to help with the pain. No; to push away all emotions. Just focus on the work. Then he got me more. I was hooked, I suppose.”

“He got you hooked.” Seb was livid.

“He didn’t hold a gun to my head and make me take them.”

“It’s the same, in effect.”

“Then I took more to stay numb. With him.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t…understand at first, because I was grateful for the help, help with everyday things even, that I couldn’t manage. And for the attention, too. But he was well, moody. I didn’t know. Not at first. Or maybe he hid it. He could get angry, enraged, so easily. By so many things. I just tried to avoid setting him off. It wasn’t worth the scene. And because I didn’t want people to see. I was isolated, I suppose.”

“Sherlock, you know that’s emotionally abusive behaviour? All that manipulation, and controlling, over months and months? That he basically bullied you into being dependent on him, needing his approval, being scared of his anger?” He was glad when she shut up, her mouth a tight line.

“How did you cope?” Seb’s voice was a tiny whisper of sound, but the hand that gripped Sherlock’s was firm.

Sherlock shrugged. “By shutting down, not to provoke him. Closing off from people – and myself. Drinking. Taking drugs. Self-harming. You’ve seen the scars. It made me feel better.” He felt a constriction in his throat and swallowed. He felt a damp trickle on his face, but it took Seb hugging him and mopping him with his handkerchief to make him understand his face was wet with fat, slow tears.

“Stupid.” He sat back.

“What?” Alli asked him, passing him a paper tissue.

“In films, someone speaks about something and it’s all over. I don’t feel…”

“Better? Even though he’s a complete bastard who isn’t fit to clean your shoes? And was jealous of you, your brains, and personality and looks? Oh, and cash?”

He shrugged. “I’m glad I’ve spoken about it to you.” This to Seb, who pushed to his feet.

“Why do I feel I’ve only got the Study Notes version? I should have –”

“No.” Sherlock was hard in his reply to Seb.

“No. Let me too. I saw you’d taken up with someone else, so I kept my nose out. Kept away. I wanted you to have a chance. Then I was back in Oxford, for the ceremony, and we met, and I saw…” Sherlock could barely remember the meeting. Not the details, anyway, but the mere fact they’d met had provoked a confrontation with Victor so huge, so explosive, it had given Sherlock not the strength, but the way to leave.

“You dropped out, after that.”

Sherlock nodded.

“And came…here? London? Doing…”

“Not doing. Just…being. And that barely. That’s…a story for another day, if that’s all right?”

“Of course it is!” And he’d never been hugged so hard as now, Seb grabbing him to his feet, crushing him almost, nuzzling into him, murmuring sweet words of love, whispering apologies, words he didn’t need to say, apologies he didn’t need to make, because Sherlock understood the depth and the strength of Seb’s feelings. For him. For them.

“Such a waste. A waste of us,” Sherlock whispered, shakily. “That I could go from you to…that. And we could have been –”

“We’re us now. And we won’t waste another second,” Seb promised in his ear. “You come to NY when I have to go, and I’ll stick my nose into your cases. And we have a daughter! We’re so lucky. We’ll make everything , every moment count. Of us and her. It’s all going to be even more wonderful than it already is. You’ll see.”

“I do already.”

“May I?” And Alli joined in the hug fest, squashing against them both.

“Thank God you’ve got all those sheets of newspaper stuck on the windows,” Sherlock remarked, as he eventually pulled free. “I’d hate people to think this was a show. And can we say, show’s over? Not keep –”

“D’uh,” replied Alli. “And it is the _Times_ pasted on. You make it sound like the _News of the World_ , or something.”

“You’ve got most of those clues wrong, in that crossword there,” Seb pointed out. “It’s not even the Cryptic one, for crying out loud.”

An exasperated Alli threw her compact at him, Seb caught it and checked his face, and somehow it was over, confession time, the past revisited, whatever. Over and out.


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

“Right.” Alli looked at them. “Obviously we need to speak to Victor. I had no idea ‘Vite’ was him. Well, that sort of stuff’s not really my thing. What with me having studied art. But we can interview him, lead him to talk about things.”

“Not Sherlock,” said Seb.

“Of course not. You and me. And probably his agent…”

Sherlock’s “huh?” met empty air – Alli had zoomed off. She reappeared a minute later with a few files.

“These are my Possible Ideas for Exhibitions folders.” They were labelled PIEs, and Sherlock smiled. “Let me pitch you this I’ve back-burnered for a while.” Her dramatic cough-and-pause build-up gave way to, ‘“Tain’t Modern.’ Look.”

They dutifully looked at the photos and clippings. Seb shrugged.

“It’s my idea, a concept to bring together artists who are playing with classicism and modernity! You must have seen Sam Addams’s work. The celebrity pictorialist? He recreates famous classical portraits and pictorialist images using pop culture icons?”

“Is that…Susan Boyle as Louise Brooks?” Seb asked faintly, averting his eyes from the ropes of pearls being toyed with. “And Jordan as Charles I?”

“She’s actually a not half-bad rider,” Alli commented. “Oh, and shut it. You know what I mean. And look, this artist paints actors who’ve starred as artists in films in the style of that oeuvre. Post- creative!”

They looked at the pictures, Scarlet Johansson painted as the Vermeer heroine she’d acted, Benedict Cumberbatch in all Van Gogh’s ginger fury…

“You know what? That might be a too post-modern,” said Seb. Sherlock was still wondering what they were doing.

“Fine.” Alli passed over another file, labelled ‘What the Dickens: the serious and the smirk.’

“Erm…” Sherlock thought he’d better contribute. To whatever it was.

“It’s a Dickens quote. ‘There are only two styles of portrait painting: the serious and the smirk.’ Lisa Alexander, you’ve met her, Seb, does those vanity paintings of new-moneyed WAGs looking like Gainsboroughs, non-dom wives like Lelys. The clients lap them up. Here’s a couple.”

“This fits to ‘Vite’ how?” He didn’t mind looking unarty.

“His stuff!”

‘“Toff at bay’?” Seb showed her the pictures they had.

‘“Painting by numbers’?” Sherlock added. “I could do these! A monkey from a zoo could do these!”

“It’s actually a genre called art photography, Bubbles. You know, the opposite of photojournalism, which is a visual telling of news? This is the creative vision of the photographer as artist. To express the artist's perceptions and emotions and to share them with others.”

“But it’s _cack_!” Seb exploded.

“ _His_ is, yes. But if we say we see him as massively ironic, making us sneer at life reportage, leaving Cartier Bresson in the shade, etc., etc., he’ll lap it up and beg to be exhibited in the show!”

“The show…”

“That’s reopening the gallery!”

“But…not really?” Seb was as lost as he was, judged Sherlock.

“Why not? Not with this wank, of course, but… Let me hit up a few contacts, try and get Vite’s number…”

Sherlock shrugged, and Seb gave him a sickly grimace.

“Alli, we’re sorry to put you through this, making you deal with a possible, well, murderer,” said Seb. “Well, we don’t have proof he killed Chiara d’Avalos Avery to have Adele as his piggy bank –”

“And he’s an opportunist, not a strategist,” Sherlock chipped in, recalling Victor’s MO. He’d tended to move in on situations, not instigate them. Too much planning. Maybe he’d…hardened even more over the years?

“It’s okay. I enjoyed delivering that filthy drug dealer to justice and smashing his evil ring. And bringing down the prince and his corrupt kingdom. It felt so good. Oh. Maybe I’m sort of a detective, like you, Sherlock?”

“I…think you just have anger issues,” said Seb.

“I wonder why,” Alli muttered, as her phone signalled a message. “Ha! Here I go. Alli the Vigilante, moving upwards and onwards to take down a possible criminal and a criminally bad artist.” She squeezed Sherlock’s hand as she called.

“Victor? Hi there! Guess who this is!” she started. “No, no, and no,” came her next words. “I’ll give you a clue. Oxford? I was at William? No. No! God. Yes! Hi!” She listened a little. “Yes, I did. Yes, we sort of did. It’s complicated. And you? Did you get… Ha, yes!” She kicked at Seb, who was making sick noises. “Let me tell you why I’m calling out of the blue, although I have been meaning to for ages. I got your number from Tracey… I don’t know if you know, but I own a gallery? Yah, so fierce! Really cutting-edge stuff. Grant’s. Just off the Fulham Road. A boutique photography gallery, and I’m broadening to include more mixed media… Just closed for a revamp, keep fresh, and I’m getting the new exhibition together.”

She scowled as they both pointed hurriedly to her portrait-painting-idea file. “Yah, a modern look at the concept of the portrait. And I love your fine art photography! Your studies of Adele the Avalon lady are exactly the sort of irreverent note I want to sound.”

She paused a little. “Yah, no one’s been locked down yet. But do you know Al Brodovitch? Absolutely – taking celebrities back to their roots. It would be his first exhibition. You know Sebastian’s half-American. He knows everyone. But seriously. You should take me to lunch and we can… Well, normally artists or their agents court gallery owners!” She rolled her eyes. “Should I speak to your agent? What? Grant’s. The summer show is our big one. Are you Googling me?”

“Typical,” whispered Seb, and Sherlock nodded.

“Tea? How unusual!” Seemed Alli’s trendy venue and her past exhibitions had passed muster. “Today? Sebastian? Why not. No time like the present. Oh, no prob. He does what I tell him. Sleeping partner and all that. Easier that way. So, where’s the latest ‘in’ café? You must know.” Her eyes widened, and she motioned for Seb to help Sherlock prepare himself, to sit as she switched to speaker phone, and Victor’s smooth tones sounded in a drawl.

“…come over. I’d love to show you my collection.”

“Perfect! Where’s your studio?”

“Oh, it’s rather better than that, Allegra.” And the address he gave was Adele’s Belgravia mansion.

“Four-ish. Right. Really four, or late four?”

Alli received a short reply to her babbling, and it was over. It hadn’t been…as bad as he might have imagined. Not with Seb holding his hand and Alli close by, both of them making faces at the idiocy of the whole thing.

“Right. Better call Ben.” Alli was all business.

“To get mic’ed and eyed? Yes.”

“And to know what to wear. To hide or go with the mics and cameras. It’s all right for men, a pair of trousers hides a multitude of sins, but for women… Never mind. I’ll do it.”

“She has…bodyguards on speed dial,” said Sherlock faintly, seeing into the future and Beatrice… Seb looked ruefully resigned too.

“Ohhh. Clunky. Statement pieces…” Alli said a minute later, studying the picture she’d received of the  
jewellery which housed the wires and camera. “Needs something minimalist yet well cut; classical but not frumpy, which I can do via the shoes and bag. Right. Off?”

“Shopping,” explained Seb to Sherlock, glumly. “You didn’t have anything planned for the day, did you.”

“I know. It’ll be better when Rissa opens her London boutique. Which should be within a couple of months. And she sends her thanks, as always.”

Seb’s smile was a little strained at the edges as Alli went to get her bag.

“One day you’ll have to tell me exactly what you… Oh don’t. It’s more fun this way,” observed Sherlock. He didn’t feel remotely like laughing a little later, in the Chelsea boutique they’d been dropped off at, Alli approving of the car and driver and demanding – and getting –permission to call on him.

“Is this…what being married’s like?” he asked, shifting on the uncomfortable sofa and setting aside the sour herbal tea and rice cakes as he and Seb waited. Another man shared their sofa, and two other men waited in matching chairs set at careful angles to face the cases of bangles and bikinis.

“Pretty much.”

“What, just waiting around?”

“Mate, this is the easy part.”

“Sebastian!” Alli cried, sticking part of herself out of the changing room. “This dress or this one?”

“Oh, both, of course!” called Seb, and the elderly man next to them whispered it along with him.

“Is the correct answer!” shouted Alli, vanishing again.

“Should be. Had enough practice,” Seb muttered.

“This is the other part,” the man explained to Sherlock.

“Well, maybe you need the practice. We’ll be doing this with Bea, soon enough. Our daughter,” Seb added for the bloke’s benefit.

“And her personal shopper.”

“Stylist, mate. No; she’ll have own designer! We’ll be sitting waiting for her to discuss the ideas.”

“In Paris,” Sherlock added. “You’ll have to brush up your French, as well as your music. And you’ll have to tell Alli.”

“When it’s solved. I’ll take her out, get her tipsy, give her some new jewellery…”

“I don’t see why the marriage failed. Not with you getting your moves from Oliver’s playbook.” Sherlock knew his tone was waspish.

“Hmm. Not got his chequebook though.” And Seb’s was rueful.

“Oh. Is this shop expensive?”

“Oh yeah. Members only.”

“A clothes shop? Members only? How?”

“It’s a designers’ boutique. All the unique pieces selected by a stylist. No price tag, no money exchange. They put it on your account and…send it to me.”

“And you’ve only got one? Between you? MMF is it?” enquired the elderly gent. He waved at two blondes in sky-high shoes. “We’re FFM.”

“No, we’re not effing anything. She’s my ex-wife,” began Seb.

“And I’m his fiancé,” said Sherlock. Wait. Put like that, it did sound… The blondes came over, their purchases made. They seemed to be twins.

“Oh, I’m not judging anyone.” The old man winked. “Double or Quits, I always say.” He threaded stick-thin arms through the girls’ and they left.

“God. Bet those are their nicknames and he won them at poker,” Seb exploded. He finished his tea and looked at Sherlock. “About ’fessing up to Alli. It might be difficult. You see, she wanted children.”

“I know. And that she’d be furious with you, but why? Even if you have a child, it’s nothing to do with her, is it? You’re divorced. It’s your business. Not hers. Oh.” He hadn’t been aware he was quite so…bothered about Alli’s continued relationship with Seb. Seb understood and took his hand, rubbing his thumb on the back.

“This isn’t going to show me in a very good light, but here goes. I sort of said we’d, when we were married, we could try.”

“Oh.” He briefly wondered how he’d feel, how he’d cope if the pair had produced. Moot point.

“But I lied.”

“How? How would that be possible? She’d presumably notice if you were only pretending to have sex with her. Or using condoms on the sly.”

Seb gripped his hand tighter. “I secretly had a vasectomy.”

“Wow.” Sherlock frowned as he considered. His first thoughts were for Allegra. “That’s a kick in the teeth.”

“Belle, I’m _so_ glad you didn’t say kick in the balls. I’m not a really good person. I wasn’t, I mean. A bit of a bastard. I’m different with you. When I thought there was a chance for us, I became, well I tried to be better. I want to live up to you. But the worst is she thought it was her. She was talking about going for tests.”

“So you told her.” Sherlock squeezed back.

“Yes. Well. Sort of.”

“Seb.”

“I left a letter from the clinic lying around for her to find.”

“Christ, Seb!”

“Yeah. Not a good person, remember?”

“But you said to me you wanted children! And what about Bea? Was that all a lie?” Sherlock was reeling, not thinking clearly.

“No! I would never lie to you. I had it reversed. It’s just a bit of microsurgery.”

“What.”

“It’s called a vasovasostomy. The same surgeon just stitched the cut ends of the vas deferens back again. No big deal. Just a lunchtime job. I was back at my desk by two. It’s so easy to have work done in the States.” Seb patted his firm jaw approvingly.

“When. When did you decide to be a better person and when did you have this second op.” Although Sherlock thought he could guess. Right about the time he was gaining notice for his detective work and Seb decided to hire him. No; at the end of the bank case: their first date. Sometime after that. Probably the next morning.

Seb blushed, confirming his thoughts. “Let a bloke have some mystery, hey? But I mean it. You know how I feel about you and getting this second chance.”

“But now we’ve got Bea, that’ll hurt Alli even more. I’m surprised she even talks to you.”

“Like I once said, she’s not anyone’s enemy. She’s a very decent person. Looks for the best in people. And has me over a barrel. Morally, ethically –”

“Financially…”

Seb shrugged, standing to take his ex-wife’s shopping bags from her. She was wearing some of the new clothes. Sherlock made sure Seb got his credit card back. He’d never disliked Alli, not really, and he sort of agreed with her, that Seb owed her. Seb could presumably afford it. His way of making amends. Sherlock didn’t envy him one bit explaining about Beatrice. But that had to be done. Yes, Alli was decent, had surely tried to build a good marriage with Seb and supported him still. Sherlock couldn’t dislike her.

Ben certainly didn’t; in the van a few streets away, he hugged her back as if they hadn’t seen each other for years instead of a week or two, and she enquired warmly about various people Sherlock presumed were his family. Sherlock missed both her and Seb when Jonas drove them, wired and mic’ed, off. He had mixed feelings about the afternoon ahead, who they’d be dealing with, and was glad Seb had Alli’s no-nonsense back-up. None of his feelings, he discovered, were insecurity or fear or jealousy. He was musing on this, and almost didn’t notice the van driving off with him in it.

“I’m coming back to yours,” he was informed. “We can record there. Frik invited me round to meet his latest charge. He’d better not be cooking any of that disgusting dried meat stew mess.” They met a courier on the doorstep, and Sherlock signed for a package from Oliver Wilkes. Faxed copies of evidence the old man and Chiara had been intending to present on the plaintiff in their court case. Would the case go through now, Sherlock wondered. He didn’t have time to examine the sheets of paper, and once inside 221C, Ben didn’t make immediately for the bank of equipment. His attention went to the tiny dark-haired girl in the frilly dress chirping in Frik’s sling as he worked, the baby who focussed her attention on the newcomer at once.

“Oh,” Ben said, approaching, then standing still to be inspected. Bea pulled on Frik to make him stand and squirmed until she was free to flop onto Ben, grabbing at him for stability. She poked at his face.

“See? This little lady’s a natural fighter. Straight for the eyes,” Frik commented approvingly. Ben held still, securing her, although it couldn’t have been comfortable. Bea did seem captivated by his unusual eyes but then wriggled herself up, right onto his head, rolling on his short hair like it was one of the textures on her activity blanket. Her chubby little knees were connecting with his eyes now, and both she and the world-class-tough guard were giggling. It was…scary.

A completely enamoured Ben sank to the floor under the commotion of the wiggling baby whose arms and head were now down the back of his shirt as if he were a play tunnel in a baby gym. “Is this okay?” he whispered, and Frik nodded, smiling. “She’s an old soul,” Ben said, as Bea slithered down his back and round to the front to stare at him again. “She’s been here before. It’s how she connects with people. And you were right – she’s a beauty.”


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

“Ah, Mrs Hudson. This is Ben. And this isn’t the cinema! There’s no need for popcorn!” Sherlock took the tray of snacks from her as she hovered, so she could shake a regal hand with the newcomer.

“Oh, I don’t hold with popcorn, dear. It gets in my teeth. Mr Frik I said I could watch the spying on that awful man, that cuckoo in the nest.”

She wants to see Adele’s house, thought Sherlock, trying not to grin. The monitors were live now, and sound trickling out the speakers as Ben and Mrs Hudson jostled each other to cuddle Bea as Frik worked. Up to him then, to play host. _Really_. He set the snacks out and poured drinks. Everyone had travel mugs, and it took him a moment to realise Mrs Hudson was determined not one drop of hot liquid would be spilt or splashed on her precious and wriggly goddaughter.

“I am not singing the school song. I didn’t sing it at school, and I won’t now. ‘Dedicated to service’? And I don’t really think it can be necessary. You must be misinformed,” came Alli’s firm tones.

“Sebastian’s ex-wife. Smart cookie.” Frik explained to Mrs Hudson approvingly, and Ben, Bea tucked inside his shirt as if were her baby sling, nodded.

“Didn’t think she’d fall for it.”

“If singing is necessary to check the levels, although I doubt it, let’s sing something from uni.”

“Nice voice,” commented Ben, and Mrs Hudson, giving Bea’s hair a loving brush as her head merged from her improvised play house, agreed. And if the good and rich citizens of Belgravia thought it odd to hear two well-dressed people walking down an exclusive street proclaiming they were the real Slim Shady, they were too well mannered to show it.

“Oh. She’s very pretty,” said Mrs Hudson as the couple walked past a reflective surface and Alli stopped to check her makeup. Sounded like Mrs Turner had a rival. “I can see why it didn’t work out, of course,” she whispered.

“She’s too good for him?”

“Hey!” Sherlock admonished Ben, smiling when Bea let out an, “eyy!” in back-up.

“No – all the bickering! So wearing,” answered Mrs Hudson.”

“They’ve always been like that. They, we all met at university, but they didn’t marry until ages after.” Sherlock tried to explain.

“Because you weren’t available, so he settled. And she’s a nice lady.” Mrs Hudson passed the snacks round and distracted an eager Bea from Ben’s square of cake she wanted.

Seb and she obviously gossiped. Sherlock had a vision of Seb inviting Mrs H to lunch in the City and pouring his heart out. Or maybe they had secret talks here. He decided to bug both kitchens himself and see.

“Oooohhhh.” The couple were in front of the house, walking up the wide white marble steps under the portico with its columns and lamps. The white paintwork gleamed and the black of the lamps, the railings and the front door shone. It looked huge. Five stories, hadn’t Seb said. At least one at basement level. He glanced – Mrs Hudson had what looked like a scrapbook out.

“That’s the butler, Geoffrey! He’s been with them for years. ’Course, it would have been a footman in the old days.” Mrs Hudson toyed with her necklace.

“It’s not _Downton Abbey_!” protested Sherlock.

“More like _Nightmare Abbey_ , if what you’re thinking is true,” said Frik.

“Does it remind anyone else of a wedding cake, that house?” Ben asked.

“Yes, thank you! _That’s_ what it is,” replied Frik. Sherlock rolled his eyes.

Despite the horrific nature of the case, this was bearable, almost fun, like being on a show with some acerbic designers or decorators passing critical remarks, now commenting on the entrance hall and the reception hall it gave onto, with Mrs Hudson the token nice panellist on board for balance.

“Look at those hall tiles. From Tuscany. Original feature. Adele’s mum bought the house because of them you know,” she informed them, comparing the view on the screen to something in an old-looking architecture magazine. “Guess how many prime ministers have walked on them. Go on!”

“Six?” replied Frik after a pause.

“Seven!”

“ _Raus_ ,” said Frik, and got a slap on the arm for swearing in front of young ears, ears which presumably understood Afrikaans.

Maybe telling the story had freed Sherlock; he didn’t even flinch on first hearing the voice, then seeing Victor’s face as greetings and pleasantries were exchanged. Thickened with age, of course, but not much. He’d be careful, Sherlock knew. His skin, now veering more towards perma-tanned than swarthy, helped by the blue contacts, was better now – must be having treatments. His eyebrows looked, groomed? Was that the word? And were complemented by the shape of the barely there designer stubble moustache and chin beard. Must take some looking after.

“That him? Your ex? Looks a tosser, man,” commented Frik.

“Complete tosspot,” Ben agreed. Mrs Hudson limited herself to a tutt and to covering Bea’s ears. “That supercilious expression. If he’d know a word like that.”

“You were what, drunk or stoned for much of the time?” Frik asked.

“And worse,” Sherlock whispered, one eye on the women.

“You’d have to be. I don’t understand the cricket whites and a tweed jacket…with a neckerchief?” was Ben’s next contribution.

“Yes, he wants to make his mind up.” Mrs Hudson joined in, head on one side. What was this, some _What Not to Wear_ bitching?

“And see how he’s got one eye bigger than the other? That’s serious in Chinese face reading. There’s a big difference in how he sees himself and how he sees the world. He’s also very jealous.”

Sherlock didn’t like to ask if Frik had spent much time in the East. He was on the mark, anyway. And maybe the difference in eye sizes had become more marked with age – Sherlock didn’t recall it as being that bad.

“Or it might look like that because his head’s sort of slanted, to help him make that swarmy, smirky face. Oh, actually, what’s wrong with his neck?” This from Ben. “Is his head simply too heavy for him?” He tried to imitate the odd twisting movements.

“He’s got one of those long faces, of course,” said Mrs Hudson, consideringly, and ignoring the smart remarks about the guy having no reason to, with a house like that. “Fiddle face, it used to be called.”

“Well, for my money, that quiff thing is the worst.” Ben rubbed his own short hair in demonstration. “Is he actually Elvis?”

“Just a hound dog,” muttered Sherlock. In all fairness, it wasn’t a pompadour, just the top looked as if were blown up in a wind. Blown up and staying there. “He used to just gel his hair back. Flat.”

“Well, you see, he’s scrunched that top middle bit up to add a bit of bulk to it to balance his length of face. He’ll have a stylist to groom him. You know, a beautician.” Mrs Hudson nodded. “It’s all the rage, manscaping. See how the shape of that half-beard mirrors his hair line! And his moustache is the same shape as his eyebrows, only the hair on the top half is thicker, to draw the eye there.”

“Got it! He’s going for some sort of Mesmer look. You know, an illusionist, mentalist, thing. Look into my eyes…” exclaimed Ben.

“Yes – _thank_ you! Again with the _mot juste_!” Frik nodded, high-fiving his fellow bodyguard, then both of them indulging Bea in a softer, wobbly-handed version . “Yis, stage magician chic. Must be in, _ja_?”

Sherlock didn’t know if they’d been asked to help him through this, but that was the point he started wheezing with laughter, making Beatrice stretch out her arms to him, and Mrs Hudson shush him – the party was going into –

“The family room! Ohhh!”

“Misnomer, if ever there was one,” Sherlock observed. The room was no cosy den for relaxing but large and full of beautiful furniture. Smaller ceiling lamps complemented the huge chandelier, and soft-looking rugs comforted the feet.

“Oh, there’s the watered silk wallpaper! It was made just for her, you know. Oh, I wish Marie was here. Maybe I could… No. No time.”

Sherlock turned to ask Mrs Hudson if she’d like some the same and saw she was…sketching it, Frik obligingly holding her pencils for her. The sound quality was patchy, in a way that made Ben frown, but they’d get a report later.

“Oh, I hope we see the music salon. John Lennon played on the piano. Adele’s very private, you see. Never splashes the house about. Oh, they say it has a pool and a steam room!”

They wouldn’t be able to hear the recorded conversation above the armchair guided tour anyway, Sherlock reflected, feeding Bea her bottle. Maybe he should secure the plastic bottle in his arm and text Seb, instructing him to twirl about and film a round-the-world panorama, to give Mrs Hudson a virtual visit?

“Da,” he thought he heard Bea say, as Seb’s voice filled the room. Oh. He so wanted to be Papa. He half hoped he’d imagined it. Bea was now back at her milk, so maybe he had.

“Why is that man asking so many questions about normal things?” asked Mrs Hudson, her hand hovering with a muslin square around Bea’s mouth for any possible dribbles. Must be a new frilly white-and-pink dress. The ladies had been shopping again.

“It’s not that. He’s got that really annoying rising intonation,” Frik tried to explain.

“Upspeak?” Ben added, and Sherlock didn’t know if he were taking the piss in imitating it.

“It’s irritating?” said Frik.

“I agree?” Ben was definitely being sarcastic that time.

“Time for tea?” Not Mrs Hudson joining in – it really was. “There’s the butler again. And that’s a maid.”

“Do you think the vicar’s coming?” asked Frik.

“Ooh, cucumber sandwiches!” Mrs Hudson was probably incapable of sarcasm, and Sherlock knew her fingers were crossed that Adele joined the group.

“Mrs H, what about that teapot? Any thoughts?”

And from decorators to stylists to antique hunters. The silver service was elegant and had Mrs Hudson flicking frantically through magazines and books.

“Well, silver, antique, nineteen-twenties looking, I’d say. Oooh, they’re talking about it! They can’t hear us, can they?” she finished on a whisper.

It did seem Victor thought he was of the moneyed aristocracy, deserving of special things, but betraying his nouveau riche roots by dwelling on them.

“Oh, _art deco_. Of course. We should have known that,” said Ben

“And _sterling_ silver, Mrs Hudson,” Frik corrected.

“One of only two in the world?” Victor was announcing. “The other went to –”

“The Aga Khan,” and, “Sir Bache Cunard,” came two guesses from the other two men present.

“Now we’ll never know!” Mrs Hudson looked ready to cry. Bea tried to flap her muslin cloth at her.

“Well, we know the pot weights 51 troy ozs?” replied Frik as Victor’s patter continued. “I have to ask: did he work as an auctioneer?”

“He’s never worked. As far as I know.”

“Sebastian’s eyes must be hurting from all the rolling. I wonder if he’ll steal a spoon,” said Frik.

“Smash a cup and ruin the set more like.”

“It is pretty,” said Mrs Hudson. “I do like those trees and flowers. Lovely pink colours on that ivory. I think it’s of a period with the service.”

“Oh, Royal Doulton.” Ben nodded along with the commentary. “Quality. Wait. What?”

“He…had the trim re-gilted from gold to silver to match the tea service,” Sherlock echoed weakly. He wished he could see Seb’s face. It must be purple from holding in a, “you always were all about the rimming,” wisecrack.

“Okay. He’s an idiot, but not a murderer.” Frik looked at them all. “In my experience, guys who spend a lot of time thinking about teapots and cups don’t…tend to commit murder.”

“And ruin his manicure?” added Ben. He obviously agreed with Frik, and Sherlock knew Victor tended to maximise situations, sniff out what he could push or pull, could exploit.

“Sebastian’s going! Where, do you think?” asked Mrs Hudson, darting her gaze between the two screens, one showing Alli’s point of view and one shifting and lurching as Seb moved.

“To give you a tour,” replied Sherlock. Seb seemingly passed the broccoli test without even trying. He watched Seb pause before an ornate hall mirror and wink, knowing Sherlock was watching via the miniature camera concealed in Seb’s tie pin. The camera inside Alli’s huge pendant gave better coverage.

“Well, if he goes for a slash, I hope he remembers he’s micc’ed up,” commented Ben. He reached out and took Bea to burb her, seemingly on autopilot. Sherlock wondered how many children he had. He seemed too young.

“I reckon he’s going for a snoop, hoping to find Vite’s study and a file labeled ‘Dastardly Plans.”’ This was Frik.

“He’s not that hopeless. He’s left them alone so Alli can talk to him. She’s good with people. And the sound’s better now. Maybe the two mics were causing interference?”

“Shouldn’t. Interesting,” said Ben. They all fell silent to listen to Alli draw Victor out on the house and its occupants, heard him describe what a comfort he was to Adele d’Avalos Avery, the son she and her husband had always wanted, the rock she leant on now she was widowed… He didn’t mention she’d lost her daughter too.

“So she’s like a second mother to you? Or more like a patron of the arts? Your backer? She supports the arts, doesn’t she.”

Don’t push it, Sherlock mentally implored Alli.

“Well, it’s more she relies on me. Especially now. Needs me, you could say.” Victor smiled, and it looked so snake-like, Sherlock shuddered.

“Is he drugging her?” Frik’s question made sense, especially in the light of the case they’d all worked on in Oxford.

“Gaslighting, maybe.” Mrs Hudson pursed her lips. Ben and Frik stared at her. Sherlock did wish people wouldn’t underestimate Martha Hudson. Still, they learnt.

“Well, I guess it’s a little like you and Sebastian?” Victor continued.

“Oh? Together for years and married and divorced and…complicated? Can’t live with each other, can’t live without each other?”

Sherlock hoped that was her improvising.

“More like you said earlier: he does what you say; it’s easier.”

“Oh!” Alli laughed, and Sherlock hoped Victor couldn’t tell it was faked. “Well, you win. Hands down. I mean, look!” She indicated the sumptuous room. “What’s a detached villa in Hampstead to this!”

“Yes. It’s rather good.” Victor rearranged a group of ornaments on a low table.

There was a pause, while Alli thought quickly. “Well, I have the gallery too. Sebastian is generous – to a point. Not such a wide-thinking patron as you have. Or as able, obviously. And about the gallery…”

“Hmm? Do tell?”

“Well, I have these plans to expand. Into the ancient bookshop next door, get more space. Sebby doesn’t understand that I think I could be so much more than an exhibition space, however cutting-edge. I could be…a design showroom. Oh, I don’t create, but I understand what’s needed. What people need. People don’t understand…chairs, for instance.” She was improvising madly. “I have to be around creative artists.”

“It’s funny you should say that. It’s a thing I’ve been… I need to be in the atelier, immerse, soaking in beauty, and as you say, the contact with artists, creators… I have this wonderful idea? There’s this odd bit of family property knocking around. Gloucestershire, so real deep country.”

Mrs Hudson snorted.

“Early Jacobean-revival sixteenth-century hunting lodge. Tiny, but sweet rooms and so much nature? I have a vision of creative retreats-cum-stays, like a colony or break for artists? Select ones, obviously. And not some sort of Spartan roughing it. Old-fashioned country house, well, largesse.”

“Like a salon _and_ country place? Exchange ideas, discuss projects, get inspiration and enjoy your great hospitality and patronage?”

King Victor queening it over his court. _God._

“Yes! Why not. You get it. Sort of artistic and intellectual and even political meets. Just imagine the fantastic projects spawned there, under my aegis! The place is rather…inspiring, set in the erstwhile royal forest. Built for King Henry VII as a resting place from la chasse and beautifully preserved. Needs…the magic touch, of course. All these sheds and garages and boathouses which could be bedrooms, for one thing…”

“Wait.” Sherlock’s exclamation cut through Alli’s fake squee about Victor being a muse and a champion and her backing this and being happy to run the London showroom end of things. “Country place in Gloucestershire – that’s Chiara’s house!” Remembering something he’d read about Chiara using her inheritance from her grandfather to buy in that county before it was fashionable, he scrabbled through the official documents from the lawyer, finding her address. “Where she lives!”

“Lived,” whispered Mrs Hudson. “It’s her daughter’s now.” She didn’t even tell anyone off when off-colour exclamations were loosed. And her face showed she echoed Sherlock’s determination that if Victor Trevor had done anything to hurt Beatrice through hurting her mother, never mind his abuse of Adele, he had to pay.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

He’d missed a bit: Victor was now referring to his collection, and Alli getting excited about seeing it.

“Your photography? How many pieces do you have finished? I’d love to show your whole series. You must list your buyers. I’ll get my assistant to get in touch with them, ask if they’ll –”

“Allegra. I fear you’re underestimating me again.” A flinty note was in Victor’s voice, and his gaze was hard. “As I intimated before, it’s rather better than that. Ah, Sebastian. Back again. Find everything all right?”

“You need a bally map for this gaffe!”

And Seb sounded like he’d nipped off to read some Wodehouse.

“But no problem, not with your man Geoffrey shadowing me. Did he think I was going to take a souvenir?”

“I’ll speak to him. He should know better. Idiot. Anyway. Just in time. Come on?”

“Where?

“The Kuntskammer.” Alli indicated Victor.

And he did it. Seb actually said, “The Kunt’s what?’ jerking his chin at Victor.

“His art room. Sorry Victor. Sebby isn’t…creative.”

“Or German,” Seb muttered, following them along the hall.

“The sound quality’s still fine,” Frik said to Ben. “It was just in that room.”

“As I said, interesting,” Ben replied.

Victor’s art room was one side of the second-floor landing, with carefully controlled lighting shielding and picking out paintings.

“That’s a Picasso! And a Bacon? Is it genuine? It looks genuine!” Alli was awed, spinning from one canvas to the next. “Jasper Johns?” She turned to Victor, who was standing lounging against a glass case containing a bust. “These are astounding! But I’m not getting the theme?”

“They’re mine.”

There was a deep silence following that.

“Really?” Alli said eventually, belatedly standing in front of each painting for a while, obviously thinking they might need an identifying shot of each one. “That’s…amazing.”

“Isn’t it. Yes, they were gifts; I have the titles. Oh, with the proviso they remain in the collection proper until its owner is no longer with us, shall we say.”

“She should stay clear of those stairs,” commented Frik, pointing at the screen, and Mrs Hudson had her hanky over her mouth. Sherlock was studying the documents Oliver had sent. Yes; several paintings were listed as some of the ill-gained gifts Chiara wished returned, including the blue-period painting Alli was still in front of. As was the frankly…astronomical life insurance Adele had taken out on him, which he could presumably borrow against. What a great way to give cash.

“She has been ill.” Mrs Hudson swallowed. “Adele. Been in hospital recently. Her hip – like me – and a slipped disc…”

“When?” snapped Sherlock, but then not needing the information: one of the pages he held described how some expensive gifts had been given when the donor was recently widowed and some when she was newly out of hospital, disorientated and not in full possession of her faculties. Memory problems were mentioned. Didn’t seem as if there would be any need to keep his patroness in any sort of chemical thrall – age and nature were taking care of that, providing a platform for Victor to act on. Unlikely he’d build his own. And that hint that Victor hadn’t intrinsically cared about Mrs d’Avalos Avery and had only wanted to forge a relationship with her when he’d learnt her terminally-ill husband was in hospital and being seen by…

“I suppose Victor’s stepfather was Armstrong-Lang, the doctor?” No need to go and check: he remembered the name from his family tree. Chiara would have made a good detective, if she hadn’t been given over to chemistry. He felt a hard pang: she should have been here, to be a mother to Bea, and he would have liked to have met her.

“I can see why the daughter was worried,” said Frik, following Sherlock’s thoughts as he looked over the papers.

“And why Alli looks a little ill.” Ben looked sick himself. “Women are more sensitive to these things than men.” He cuddled Bea close. She’d won another conquest. At this rate, they should be fine for babysitters. Although Sherlock would rather his daughter didn’t find herself along for the ride as the bodyguards worked. Well, seemed she’d be growing up proficient in martial arts and good with weaponry and long-range surveillance techniques. That never hurt. Bea twisted round to look at him and he smiled. Couldn’t not.

“Well, no sign of the lady of the house,” said Mrs Hudson a little dolefully as the trio onscreen made its way back down the wide staircase, amidst Seb’s chatter that he didn’t know much about art, but liked those ironic modern ones, of dogs dressed up and playing cards; he had one in his office. She started to gather up the tea things. “Oooh, I just want this to be over so Beatrice can meet her granny. It’s not fair!”

“None of it is,” said Sherlock.

“And Seb’s never met her, for all he and Bea’s mum were…”

“Holiday romance.”

“Oh. But –”

“Well, as soon as this is over, we’ll all have to meet up to plan the christening, I suppose.” Sherlock could be ruthless when he had to. “I mean, you ladies will have to coordinate your clothes. Avoid clashing, and all that?”

Mrs Hudson left, twittering about the house not looking its best for a christening-planning supper party, and maybe the building works for the big basement kitchen could hurry up, or maybe Seb’s Hampstead house might do. Sherlock was happy to get Bea to himself and leave the guards to figure out the source of the interference. The two mics were designed to work in tandem, but if there was some other equipment near…

His tiredness caught up with him as he bathed Bea and sat on the chair with her, dangling her lumpy-with-age ragged orange ball and helping her follow along to her favourite story in the old story book with the more recent recording of the tale which Angelo’s wife and her sister had recorded. It had presumably been Chiara’s favourite fairy or folk story, which she read to her daughter. He felt Bea becoming a heavy weight on him as she dropped off to sleep, and he let himself drift, half puzzling out the story of the princess who lived in a castle with big gardens under a sun-filled sky. His arms tightened on his daughter and he shot upright as he felt… Seb. Sliding Beatrice free and putting her in her cot, biting back an exclamation that a furry shape he pushed aside wasn’t a toy but a cat, and not Beamish. The ginger ball looked indignantly at them as it left through the window.

“We are getting an electronic door fitted on that roof access with a magnet for Beamish’s collar,” said Seb, bending low to kiss Bea as he tucked her in.

“He’ll just clone it for his friends.” Sherlock yawned, and Seb pulled him up for a kiss.

“Okay?” Seb asked, searching his gaze.

“Yes. Fine! Honestly. Everyone was with me, and we all enjoyed the show.”

“Did you see those contact lenses! I bet he has pairs in different colours to match his moods. Imagine him in the morning: ‘Hmm. Who am I today? I’m…Elizabeth Taylor!’”

Sherlock sniggered.

“But the worst has to be that vision of him presiding over arty-farty power parties, trying to influence people and events. Again – who am I? Lady Astor? Lady Ottoline Morrell?”

“Seb, _dearest_. Have you been Googling famous political and artistic hostesses?”

“That…could be said to be true. To some extent. Rose! How did you find me in the neighbours’ garage, dressed in these overalls, under their Rolls?” Seb camped, and Sherlock shook with laughter, making Seb hustle him from Bea’s room. There were worse role models. His parents, for example.

“My Belle. You know me so well,” Seb whispered in his ear. “And I’m so glad it wasn’t too awful for you.”

“You did well. Really well, when you consider your feelings. And you were good before, in Oxford, in case I didn’t tell you then. You’re a little too believable at playacting, you know.”

“Hey. Not with you. Never. Tell me you know that.” Seb didn’t release his hold on Sherlock’s face until Sherlock nodded, and Seb smiled.

“Good. And sorry it took a while. Jonas drove us over half London after, in case we were being followed. His Spidey sense was acting up. Then Alli wanted to strategise, before being taken God knows where. And then Ben told me the latest, after, including the provenance of Vite’s future hostess-without-the mostess-HQ. Bastard. He’s going down. And not in a good way. The only consolation is the butler and maid seemed to hate him too. Hungry? I picked up dinner. Save you cooking, dear.”

Over the takeaway fish and chips, Sherlock showed Seb the latest information, the correlation of Adele’s gifts to her protégée with her coming out of hospital. “But that’s so him. Zooming in on a weakness,” Sherlock commented.

“And how far would he go to preserve what he’s got?” Seb wondered. “But you know what I’ve been asking myself? Oh, not how did I get so lucky as to get you. I’ll never figure that. Just, why was your brother trying to keep you out of it? To protect you from having to see Victor? That would be very brotherly of him.”

“First time ever, then. Maybe he knows about Bea.”

“And…”

“I don’t know. That’s the thing – we don’t know much here. We have no solid evidence or proof. Nothing. I thought we were onto something with that buyout of the organic products company – but nothing connected to her death. Nothing to do with her Foundation or the company or what both do.”

“We should look into Jack Avery’s death.”

“Oh.” Sherlock considered. “You think Armstrong-Lang finished him off? That he and his stepson are in it together?”

“Not so much that as that’s how Victor perhaps got the idea to muscle in, if he knew Jack was ill or dying? He swooped in when Adele was distraught with that. At the least, we could prove professional misconduct or something, if a doctor was dishing out deets of an illness? But, who knows?”

“We could get to work in the hospital. Maybe this doctor has a reputation or a history and…”

The discussion continued, but didn’t advance, and Seb called a halt to the going round in circles. Sherlock wondered if their closeness to the case and feelings about those involved were clouding the issues and was pleased to agree to Seb’s request for a complete break.

“Change activity. Mental refreshment,” Seb said, finishing washing the dishes and putting coffee on.

“Change the CD too. Mental torment.” Seb was still trying to catch up with classical music. He flicked the tea towel at Sherlock’s arse in retaliation, making Sherlock supress a squeal.

“Oh I say. Just like school. Want another?” Seb’s eyes gleamed.

“Your schooldays…must have been…fun,” Sherlock eventually replied.

He copied Seb’s example and sat at his laptop to catch up with events. In Seb’s case this was the markets, and breaking stories. In Sherlock’s, his website, and an e-mail sent to its address not an hour previously, one which stopped him dead, and yet started mental cogs spinning. He gave a low whistle. “Seb. Look at this.”

“If it’s that gossip about the real reason behind Tom Cruise’s divorce, I’m way ahead of you,” replied Seb, coming to stand behind Sherlock and twining his fingers into Sherlock’s curls as he looked at the e-mail. Within seconds he’d dropped to the arm of Sherlock’s chair. “This… Is it a new case someone’s bringing you? Or…coincidence.”

“Hell of one, if so. Suspiciously so?”

“Can you trace the e-mail address? Or location?”

“I’m forwarding it to a contact now.” Sherlock phoned one of his network and stressed the urgency.

“He, they, want to meet.” Seb pointed at the screen.

“Read it carefully. At least you can tell his job.”

_Dear Mr Holmes, I have long been a fan of your work and enjoy reading the cases you solve. It was your expertise in the Connie Prince case which particularly caught my eye. We were very impressed that you reveal the guilty person no matter what pressures might be brought to bear on you._

_There is unfortunately a similar case which we would like to ask for your professional help with. It is similar in that a prominent person is being systematically hurt, and another, very beloved person, has already been removed from her life. This has been going on for a while but events escalated today, and we feel it is now urgent, especially as the perpetrator might know about this escalation. I can’t say too much here, and we can’t go to the police. This is very delicate and sensitive and I would be grateful for the opportunity to meet you as soon as possible and explain the details. Your website does not mention your fees, but I am mandated to speak for the group I work with and can confirm you should please rest assured we can meet them._

_Alfred Crichton-Lane_

_I would be very grateful for a prompt reply._

“Well, he’s polite,” came Seb’s comment. “Elderly? A little…servile?”

“Yes, the perfect butler.”

“Why… Oh yes! Three butlers!” Seb tapped a finger on the signature.

“Three? I got two.”

“Sher-bet! Alfred? Batman? God, Belle! Write back? Set up a meet?”

Sherlock did, expressing his interest and suggesting 221B Baker Street that evening, or the writer’s place. His choice. The reply came quickly, as if the person was sitting waiting: not his place, and he would prefer not to go to Sherlock’s professional domicile. He didn’t want to take the risk of being seen talking to him. Somewhere neutral. In the open, preferably.

“Showing his age. Grew up during the Cold War,” Seb commented, chuckling when Sherlock suggested Westminster Bridge – “he won’t have to travel far if he’s who we think he is” – at the triple lamppost with the gothic diadems.

“There’s only one fitting that description,” said Sherlock. They received a positive answer, and almost at once came the information the e-mail address was a free web-based e-mail set up shortly before e-mailing Sherlock, and from a chain coffee shop in Central London. No other e-mails had been sent from that address, registered to ‘John Smith.’ “Hotmail,” Sherlock commented. “He’s showing his age again. We can trace which other computers he sends from in the future. If he does. Which he probably won’t.”

“You think this is him. The d’Avalos butler.” Seb continued when Sherlock nodded, “Coincidence…or trap? Either way, I’m going with you. As is Jonas, before you say we shouldn’t work on dangerous things together. I’ll get Frik up here to sit.”

“You can come,” Sherlock said slowly, “as long as you don’t get clever and disguise yourself as a mime artist, all painted gold, standing like a statue. Or a busker. If I see a bloody guitar…” He watched Seb blush a little as he went to change, presumably to pass himself off as a tourist. Sherlock rolled his eyes at the baseball cap, but permitted it. The baggy zip-up jacket presumably allowed Seb to conceal his gun. And he did look sexy in leather.


	25. Chapter Twenty-Five

**Chapter Twenty-Five**

“I’m glad you chose this bridge.” Seb, further down, nearer to the west side of the river than Sherlock, was taking photos with a long-range lens accompanied by Angie, rustled up off the street as extra camouflage literally as they were on their way out. He spoke into the stupid Bluetooth bit of his mobile, having called Sherlock’s number earlier. Angie was turned away from Seb and his capturing of the Houses of Parliament and the Clock Tower and was sneakily filming Sherlock and probably getting a view of the Eye framed in the triple heads of the lamppost arty enough for even Victor.

“I know. You prefer green to red.” Sherlock spoke into his phone in his pocket and looked towards the next bridge along, Lambeth, red where this was green. He leaned out over the river, one of many enjoying the view at night, just as Seb was one in the middle of a camera-wielding crowd. He was near the middle, although this was no deserted bridge at midnight in enemy territory. He could see the Gherkin. Could he see Seb’s bank from here? Not in this light. He was aware of someone behind him – not Jonas, who was further along towards the east bank – and when the small group of Japanese next to him moved on, a man came to stand next to him. Elderly, lined face and wearing casual clothes where he’d been formally dressed on the video feed, but it was the d’Avalos butler, the man Mrs Hudson had said was called –

“Geoffrey.” Sherlock didn’t take his eyes from the view but saw the man flinch.

“Oh. Yes. Indeed. You are good. Do you…”

“Know every butler in London? No.” Sherlock turned to lean his back against the railing and study the view across the other side. The man was nervous, obviously. He looked tired and worn. Recent strain. Sherlock thought back to Oliver. “You need a break. I imagine your holiday in Portofino seems a long time ago now.” To his surprise the man’s eyes filled with tears.

“Do you…” He coughed, got himself under control. “Know about the…situation?”

“With Mrs Adele d’Avalos Avery? You’re concerned about her. No; that’s not it. You’re frightened. For her.”

“About your fees, Mr Holmes. I understand you only work for high profile or major clients, but please take my word that –”

“Geoffrey. It’s for Chiara, isn’t it? There’s no fee involved.”

“Did you know her?” There was such hope in the man’s voice, and he turned to look at Sherlock. Sherlock scowled in warning, until the man shuffled away slightly.

“No. I’m sorry I didn’t. I admire her work. Her dedication.” That was true. He wondered if the man, the staff, knew about Chiara’s baby.

“It wasn’t just that. She was so lovely, Mr Holmes. The nicest woman you ever met. Sweet and kind and so warm. Like the sun. Our sun princess, we called her. She was very concerned for her mother, for all they argued. She was so compassionate.”

“Which is why you were secretly recording Victor Trevor’s meetings and conversations.” Sherlock understood how Chiara had been so well-informed in drawing up the court documents to show her mentally incompetent mother was being manipulated, and why Ben’s equipment had got such poor reception in the family room. The other bugging device in there had interfered. “I want to know what made you suspicious of him. Apart from him insinuating himself at an opportune moment.”

“We heard things. The way he talked to Mrs Avery, even when her husband was still alive. And the things she said to him. We told Chiara, of course we did, and she wasn’t welcome at the house at that time.”

“Why?” That had surely been before the latest boardroom wrangles.

“Well, there was a scene when she’d tried to speak to her mother about that man. And then Mrs Avery was hurt her daughter wasn’t around more at the end, when her father was passing. She took it poorly, and he rubbed it in, played on it, said she was too busy with the annual prizes for the Foundation.”

Oh God. Chiara had been in the later stage of her pregnancy, perhaps ill and exhausted, perhaps hiding her condition due to fear.

“And you bugged the…tea set.”

“Mr Holmes! You’re a marvel! So they were your investigators there today.”

“You knew because of the interference with your devices. I suppose Adele gave that tea service to Victor, and he insists on using it whenever he has visitors. The nouve.” Sherlock curled a lip. Geoffrey shivered a little. The evening was chilly, and there was also a cool breeze off the Thames.

“If anything happens, Mrs Avery will be all right, won’t she? She’s very…withdrawn now. Doesn’t get much now, and not many visitors are…encouraged. Not worth the shouting matches. None of this is her fault. Her husband was…the one in charge really, and she did anything for him, she loved him so, and this stepson, he thinks he’s the new boss, and…” He gave in.

“Wait. Things you heard Victor and Adele saying. Wouldn’t they be more discreet? Why… Oh of course!” Sherlock put together Adele’s love of loud music, her habit of shrieking at her friends and her famed hard stares at people. “She’s deaf.”

“Quite deaf, yes. And now she’s frailer by the day, more isolated. Lost without her husband, and her daughter. That’s why if anything happened, we don’t think she’d…manage.”

‘“Anything happened.’ Like what?” Sherlock moved a little and crossed to the other side of the man.

“Well, things on the digital voice recorders. I don’t know exactly what was on them; we just gave them straight to Chiara. But we heard enough that we can guess it wasn’t…”

“What did she do with them? Chiara?” He was tense now.

“Well, they were electronic. Digital. Just started when voices started. Easy to use. They had that spike thing on the end to plug into a computer. To put the things on them into a computer. I suppose she had them when…she died.”

“And you’ve no copies.” He wouldn’t know how to. “What happened to all her things?”

“Well, they must be still at her cottage. Her mother hasn’t been able to go there. She’s not well enough.”

Except Chiara had been in London, more recently. And the lawyer had seen all evidence of Beatrice removed. He must have taken…

“And it won’t be long before _he_ gets his paws on that. He’s already been at the family’s suite, in the hotel. Look, Mr Holmes, I have to go. Here’s the latest recorders. I can trust you to do what’s needed with them, not get bought off by…anyone.” Which was more than he could be sure of with the police, Sherlock reasoned. “Shall I carry on, whenever he has people over?”

Sherlock nodded. “If you send me e-mails, do it from different locations, never the house. Do you understand?”

“Mr Holmes.” The man drew himself up, dignified and affronted. “I do watch _CSI_. I do know about these things.” He strode off.

“We…have to find those recordings.” A very pale Seb joined him, sooner than Sherlock deemed fit, if anyone was watching. “There was no PC or laptop in the hotel suite. She must have had it with her in the car. That night.”

“If she did, there was no mention of it on the inventory at the police pound. It wasn’t listed. So if she did, someone removed it from the car. Either before or after her accident.”

“God, Belle!”

“We have to think. Not here. Let’s get home.”

“It’s the jacket, isn’t it.” Seb preened a little, and Angie snorted her amusement. “I knew you’d be all about the leather. Written all over you. I thought about getting leather trews, you know.”

“I have some. Really.” Sherlock found his mouth turning up into a smile, in spite of the sombre situation, at Seb’s whimper. “But seriously, let’s get back. Angie’s cold. So are you.”

“And you. You’re not Superman.”

“Thought it was Batman. You keep changing things,” muttered Sherlock as they re-joined Jonas and headed back to Baker Street.

 

“We have to get into the Ritz and search the suite for the other devices.” Seb, running his hands through his hair in desperation as they listened to the butler’s recording of that day’s conversation between Victor, Seb and Alli, looked as though he was about to dress up as a plumber or gas board employee.

“You said there was no computer equipment there? Maybe her maid or lawyer took it. Ask Oliver to ask the old man,” Sherlock instructed.

“How about we listen to that older one first?” said Frik, being the voice of reason as he transferred the contents of the recorders onto Sherlock’s laptop.

“I’m a little nervous,” confessed Seb, and Sherlock knew what he meant. He gripped Seb’s hand as they listened to Victor and another man, Leo, it seemed, discuss the formation of the Vite company, part of Jupiter Tax Strategies.

“That’s that slimy off-shore tax git!” exclaimed Seb, grabbing his mobile to Google a picture of him. They all hunched over to look.

“And they’re…involved.” Frik looked a little ill at the noise of kissing. “I’m not a homophobe; just imagining all that hair gel and hair spray together.” He shuddered.

“But he’s suggesting putting a helluva lot of cash into it.” Seb frowned. “What was that? They’re buying an island in the Indian Ocean archipelago?”

“Maybe he’ll hold artistic retreats there too. And not pay tax on them.”

“Is this what this is all about? Tax issues?” asked Frik. “Deaths, threats, whatever, over tax?”

“It’s a huge amount they could save,” Seb pointed out. “Huge differential between paying 18% and 40% of billions.”

“Er, have been saving.” Sherlock’s comment came as they heard Victor boast about Swiss bank accounts. Secret accounts. Secret even from…Adele. “Seems Jack was quite the miser.”

“Is that legal?” Frik asked.

“Thatcher made it okay to take large sums out of the country.” Seb shrugged. “Whether she did it for Jack Avery’s benefit in particular, get the d’Avalos company to remain British as a mark of national pride, I don’t know. But I do know what they’re talking about now, this Jersey-based international management fund which set up the Swiss accounts –”

“Facilitated by the Swiss company Vevey, probably why Jack got Adele to sell shares to them,” Sherlock butted in.

“And which they’re now using to mask the purchase of the island: the family’s usual advisor, mate of my Pa, didn’t know anything about it. He would have quit.”

“I suppose the family, or Jack, retained him and followed his traditional suggestions as cover for the other activities. Does anyone else think Jack passed the mantle onto Victor as he was terminally ill? And Victor got bold enough to come more out into the open with Clive’s death. But it’s not against the law.” Sherlock started to pace. “So what’s on the older recordings that is?”

There was a silence while they digested this.

“And Chiara was methodical. A scientist. I bet she had copies of the recordings,” Sherlock continued.

“Maybe she gave the copies to someone. Or at her bank! What about her school friend, that Pa mentioned? I’m guessing she was Chiara’s age, so she would have understood such a thing. She must have trusted her.”

“Why didn’t she send a copy to Oliver? She trusted him, with the most precious thing ever –”

“Beatrice,” all three said together, the thought striking them all at once.

“Oh my God. All that stuff that came with her!” Seb darted to her playpen. “Frik, check the equipment in the kitchen? Sherlock –”

“I’m there.” Sherlock dashed to Bea’s bedroom, now unrecognisable as his old room. It had been prettified and girlified, even though Bea would only be here in the interim, while the rebuilding took place. He sprang for the bookshelf and started at one end, bending the covers of books back in case any were hollowed out in the middle. Nothing. He shook Bea’s few baby noise CDs free of their covers: unless Chiara had recovered the illicit conversations onto the actual baby CDs themselves, nothing. He tugged the drawer of clothes free and tipped it onto the floor, grabbing at whatever buttons they had, which were few and small. Health and bloody safety. He approached the cot and slid the tiny coverlet from Beatrice, then shook it and pushed his hands inside the teddy bear cover, squashing handfuls of the soft duvet, searching in vain for the bumps of hidden USB drives. He’d just taken his penknife from his pocket to take Bea’s cot mobile to pieces when she woke up and howled.

“Sherlock!” cried Seb, coming in and seeing the wreck of the room. He crossed to lift Beatrice and cuddle her close, soothing her. “Put that knife away, for God’s sake.”

Sherlock did: he’d unscrewed the wind-up music box bit of the mobile and squeezed the teddies and rabbits hanging from it. In vain. “She doesn’t even like teddy bears,” he muttered.

“I think seeing one eviscerated in front of her would upset even a teddy hater,” commented Seb, trying to settle Bea. Frik threw Sherlock a dirty look as he righted the book shelf. “Here, see if you can calm her.” Seb handed her over to Sherlock, but Bea continued to twist and struggle, and even checking her nappy couldn’t solve the problem.

“I’ll get her a supplement feed,” Seb said.

“She just wants her favourite story. Look.”

“Look at what,” Seb asked in reply, stroking Bea, trying to hold her busy hand.

“She wants that story about the princess in the palace.”

“Not the one about the brave banker? I’ve been trying to get some ideas together for a children’s book series and… Okay. How do you know?” Seb took the old book, Chiara’s book, and possibly Adele’s, from Frik.

“Look at her hand. The way she’s making a circle above her head and flicking her fingers? That’s the sign for the sun shining down. In the story the sun shines down on the palace, or something,” Sherlock told him.

“This story? With the princess?”

The two settled on the swinging seat, and Seb prepared to make a fool of himself reading the Italian.

“Hang on. Stop.”

“I’ll have classes,” Seb muttered at Sherlock’s command.

“No. Well, yes. But this story is about a little princess who had everything but was curious about the world beyond the palace. Specifically, she wanted to know what the sun was like.” Sherlock cradled Bea to him and pointed at the picture. Bea made a chuckling noise. “And she got sad because all the courtiers told her no one could ever know.”

“And?” Seb was enthralled.

Sherlock stared hard at the pages, his heart thumping. “So they told her… _she_ was like the sun. Bright and warm and made everyone happy and alive.” His Italian was rudimentary, but it was…evident. Somehow. “They called her…the sun princess.”

“Oh my God. Like Chiara. She was sunny and warm and drew people to her.” Seb clutched hard at Sherlock. “You think…Chiara knew sign language because Adele was quite deaf.”

“And taught it to Bea. Baby sign language can be taught as soon as a baby is capable of consistent eye contact and can focus on a hand movement. And Bea does have the cognitive skills to connect a movement to a thing. She is very bright.”

“Clear and bright.” Frik held up his phone. “Remember the last case, when the meaning of the names involved was important? Well, Chiara means clear and bright.”

“And Chiara was clever. Very clever.” Sherlock spoke slowly. “Beatrice, what’s your favourite toy?” He made the sign for toy, forming his hands into fists and twisting them with his thumbs in the correct position. And all three watched as Bea stretched her chubby hand up to her head, formed a wobbly circle with her thumb and index finger, then spread out her fingers to imitate rays shining down. It was the sign for the sun, or more particularly, the old, lumpy orange beanbag sun toy, likely her mother’s, she’d been clutching when she arrived.

“But it’s not here!” Seb leapt up and pointed at the bed. “And it’s not in her playpen. Where is it? Where’s it gone?”


	26. Chapter Twenty-Six

**Chapter Twenty-Six**

“Let’s calm down.” Frik looked from one to the other, then pointedly at Bea. “Your daughter should be asleep at this time.”

“Oh, her pram!” Seb raced for the door. “Must be in there!”

“Sir.” Seb stopped at Frik’s cold tone. “Your daughter’s pram is emptied and cleaned every night if it has been used in the day. Nothing is left in it to get mislaid.”

“I wasn’t insinuating…”

“And if you’d read my references, you’d have seen I got excellent marks for hygiene and tidiness.”

“Oh, I’m sure…”

“Maybe the toy was lost in the park. Or in the street,” said Sherlock, trying to smooth things over.

“I can assure you I keep track of her belongings. I’m able to see if anything gets thrown out of her pram or left behind. Besides, Beatrice would tell me, anyway.”

“Do you know where it is, Bea?” Sherlock asked, settling her down in her cot. He made the sign for sun, and Bea made a sleepy pinch at her cheeks with her thumbs and index fingers.

“ _Cat?_ Did Beamish take it?” Seb was aghast. “I’d better check the roof.”

Sherlock grabbed his shirt. “You are not going up there this time of night. Morning. Maybe she means Beamish moved it. Check our room. And the kitchen.”

“Or maybe Bea is indicating she wants Beamish.” Frik was not quite rolling his eyes, but it was close. He tucked Bea in and started her musical cot mobile.

“Or shifting the blame!” Seb was a little hysterical, Sherlock felt.

“She’s taking the mick, I think,” said Sherlock. Bea did look like she was trying not to giggle. Then suddenly from one second to the next her features settled as she dropped to sleep. Would he ever get used to it, to her? He remained watching, his hand on the bars of her bed covered by Seb’s, bending down to see too. “Let’s get searching,” he said, eventually, and they left her.

“Look. It’s not in the playpen. Or anywhere near,” Seb insisted, rummaging again. “And it wouldn’t be in the kitchen, but I’ll look.” They all did, scampering around, patting along bookshelves and lifting papers and files from the surfaces. Seb was just in the kitchen, sweeping a whole cupboard full of plastic beakers and pipettes to the floor when Mrs Hudson came in, her dressing gown pulled tight around her.

“Boys! Whatever is it? What’s happening?”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to… We’re going mad looking for a stuffed toy.” Seb tried a grin on her.

“Oh. Can’t you sleep without your Crocky? I thought you gave him to Bea. I bet she’ll give him back.” And she went for Bea’s room.

“No – a toy of Bea’s. An orange thing. We think her mother hid evidence in it.”

“Oooh! Where’ve you looked?”

“Everywhere!”

“Down the sides of the chairs?”

“Erm… No…”

Seb dashed through to the living room and kneeled in a chair, almost dislodging the tartan blanket from the back as he forced his hand down the side. “Oh. Just a box of condoms and an unsavoury magazine. I haven’t read this one. Any good?”

“Seb! They’re not mine! Must be John’s.” Sherlock glared.

“Strange combination,” commented Frik.

“Must be from different occasions?” Seb dropped the items and wiped his hands on his trousers.

“Unless he’s fairly adventurous and knows some dirty women,” Frik added. They both looked at Sherlock, who was sliding old pens and dropped coins and keys free of his chair. He scowled in return, then moved to check down the sides of the sofa. A strip of aspirin and a crunchy hanky from when he’d had that bad cold. Nearly died. And John…

 

“Nothing.”

“And what about under the sofa? You know, I wish you’d let me have a proper go in here. I understand you do your bests, but…” She stopped wittering as Frik hefted the sofa over, revealing a rugby shirt – John’s – a camisole top – probably not John’s – a golf ball – who even played? – a plate with – God! – something growing white fuzz, and a scrunched-up cigarette packet. But no one even looked at those: their attention was focussed on the raggedy-looking toy, an orange ball, soft and squashy that you wanted to squeeze or throw from hand to hand, the yellowy-orange rays standing up all around it spaced out for maximum biting or gumming, or slotting fingers in between. At some point, it had probably had a face on the front, thought Sherlock. He picked it up slowly.

“See? You never let me clean under there,” said Mrs Hudson in triumph.

“Look.” Sherlock indicated that the elastic loop to dangle the toy from had been replaced – it was newer than the fabric of the toy. But that wasn’t as important as the fact that the stuffed toy had recently been carefully slit around the side and sewn up again. The thread was different. Newer, although you had to look close to see.

“Now you can get your knife out,” said Seb, and they all watched Sherlock force the blade’s tip in between the stitches.

“Carefully! Beatrice loves that!” cautioned Mrs Hudson. “I’ll sew it up after, if you… Whatever’s that? They’re never beans, inside. Not even those pellets or poly-whatsit things like in packing. Is that…Lego? I used to play with that!”

“Not these you didn’t.” Sherlock took up one of the tiny coloured plastic blocks. He pulled at it and it slid into two halves, the half in his right hand bearing the metallic square of a flash drive.

“They’re brilliant!” exclaimed Seb, sorting the bricks into their colours.

“Chiara was brilliant,” Sherlock corrected.

“Certainly wasn’t one brick short of a download. What? Come on! That was clever.”

“She was clever. If anyone found these, they’d probably just think them more toys.”

“Yes,” Seb agreed. “She was.”

“Let’s get the contents of these jump drives uploaded,” said Frik, taking Sherlock’s laptop. “We have to figure out the system. What the colours represent.”

“I think these marks tell us the order. See?” Sherlock pointed to the miniscule nicks in the sides.

“Wait while I get a pot of tea on. And you’ll need breakfast, listening to that lot of pother.” Mrs Hudson made for the kitchen, still talking about needing a needle and thread. And dried beans.

 

“Well, the stuff about tax avoidance is just repugnant, but not illegal,” said Seb, placing the last of the green bricks together as they finished listening to them. They moved onto the yellow, and found these conversations proved harder to hear. Victor’s sly alienation of Chiara from Adele was the act of a true bastard, thought Sherlock, assessing how Victor had honed his techniques over the years, particularly how much affection to dole out and when. He had an almost uncanny talent for judging vulnerability – and heightening it to play on it, feeding the person what they wanted to hear to make himself a place in their life.

“Bastard!” Seb echoed Sherlock’s thought as they heard Victor explain patiently and loudly to Adele that her daughter was masculine in spirit, like her father, and not feminine like her mother, and so had got on better with Jack and ignored Adele. Despite Adele’s superhuman patience, the relationship had never been good, and Adele was not to blame. Some people had no family feeling. “But he’s right: he’s more girly than Chiara ever was.”

“That poor, poor old woman,” wailed Mrs Hudson above one exchange during which some staff member was dismissed at Victor’s insistence for ‘interfering.’ “Just home from hospital, all groggy on her medicine, I shouldn’t wonder. And it said in the papers she was dehydrated. How can anyone be dehydrated in London? There’s water in the taps, isn’t there? And she’s surely got enough pennies for the water bill.”

Maybe fangirling had a shelf life, Sherlock thought. “What’s being done to her is so very appalling,” he said, as they listened to the contents of the first red USB device. “But even so, it isn’t really the problem.”

“No. This is,” Seb agreed, as more was broadcast. “Red means it’s dangerous. What was that? They have a room called…the counting house?”

His question sounded out along with that of the unidentified male voice on the tape. Victor had opened the door to this man himself – Geoffrey must have been hovering with the tea service to catch this?

“Oh, it’s what my step-papa Jack and your predecessor called it,” explained Victor, smooth as ice cream. The furrowed brows of the listeners frowned harder in incomprehension as the conversation went on: donations to support the Conservation party? “Again, continuing where Jack and your predecessor left off, as the dear man instructed me, when handing over to me. But a larger pledge. The way things are these days…”

“Is that legal?” Sherlock asked Seb,

“Why ask me? Your dear pop’s the expert in political policies and rules, surely?” Seb replied.

“Yeah – see him helping? You’re the Google fiend. Go on.”

“Well, if I’m understanding this right, I think MPs have to declare gifts worth more than sixty-six pounds – one tenth of one per cent of their salaries – they receive from constituents, businesses or charities? It goes on something called the Register of Financial Interests. I should have paid more attention to all that Citizenship stuff in school,” Seb said, showing them the page he was reading.

“It’s different to how it was back then,” said Frik. “New rules about transparency, that anyone donating five thousand pound or more must be named to the Electoral Commission, were introduced fairly recently, because of scandals in the Major and Blair eras. What? Journalist, yis?”

“Jack and Adele have always been party sponsors. Always contributing and at all the events. Both as individuals and the company.” Trust Mrs Hudson to know.

“From the goodness of their hearts, I suppose. Not because there was something in it for them. Whoever this other bloke is, he’s playing coy. Listen to his tone,” Sherlock commented.

“These days…” The unknown man echoed Victor’s words. “The spectre of Lord Ashcroft…”

“Seb?”

“I’m on it! My thumbs hurt. Here we go… Party scandal, using an offshore company based in Belize to funnel five of his untaxed millions into party coffers!”

“Woah,” Frik commented.

“Oh, Jack would never have gone as far as his friend.” Victor was as soft as butter now. “He had no interest in a title, for one thing.”

“Look up ‘cash for honours,”’ Frik instructed Seb, who grumbled that they could have said they’d be needing a secretary – he’d have called his in.

“Although I, his heir, you could say, do have an offshore-based company. But, Vivian…”

“He’s got a girl’s name!” giggled Mrs Hudson.

“And…he’s also the Party treasurer. Major donor and chief fundraiser,” Seb informed them.

“Christ! But those sorts of anonymous donations are illegal now, you said?”

Frik nodded at Sherlock’s question.

“So what is this?”

“Like something from _Dallas_! _Dallas_ on Thames!” tittered Mrs Hudson.

 _“West Wing_ -minster,” was Seb’s contribution.

“Can’t even hold decent fundraising plate dinners hosted by the PM these days,” grumbled Vivian, Lord Grange. “Can’t even have corporate sponsors for dinners, all these parliamentary rules. How do they expect us to get any funds at all?”

“Bet Victor knows,” said Seb.

“So does this man. He’s leading him on.” Sherlock stretched and took a break as the unseen speakers finished the fencing and parrying and the listeners changed to the next USB stick worth of conversation. Which proved even more interesting, because there was seemingly a way around the restrictions.

“Unsecured loan? What the hell’s that?”

“Ah. Now we’re getting to my neck of the woods. An unsecured loan, although I don’t know why Victor’s mentioning it to the Party treasurer, is one made but not against any collateral or assets the borrower has. He just promises to pay it back. Which means the interest rates are higher.”

“But he’s talking about commercial terms?”

“That would be between one and three per cent above the banking base rate.” Seb spoke slowly. “In other words, nothing. That’s…basically a donation by the back door.”

They listened to Victor remind his guest that loans made on commercial terms didn’t need declaring, and both men enjoying the idea of getting one over on the Electoral Commission. The Chairman was still hedging, speaking hypothetically, and Victor seemed to lose patience. His voice sharpened, and he spoke slowly.

“Jack was very generous in this way. Maybe you don’t know about it, although I’d be surprised? But you do know about the ‘loan’ made by Capital First. Jack introduced them to the Party.”

“Bastard!” cried Seb, and Sherlock guessed banking was involved. Seb was busy gasping and spluttering, so Sherlock looked it up for himself. It was a US-based bank holding company specialising in loans and savings products who’d started up in London in the noughties, bringing their aggressive American mass marketing of credit cards to these shores, circumventing rules which hamstrung UK companies. He searched for the other name Victor dropped, Sammy Greenfeldt. Not remarkable in himself, but it was interesting that his London-based development and property firm won contracts to develop so many sites in the City, even those right on the edge of strategic view and conservation areas.

“That magical mushrooming building!” yelled Seb, and Sherlock remembered something about a planning application being revised again and again from a fourteen-story office block to become a fifty-odd-floor one, with no difficulties. He didn’t even bother looking for details on the third name spoken: the man’s supermarkets popped all over London, in the most desirable locations, to the detriment of his competitors.

“Bribery? Is this what this is all about? Mutual back scratching? Keep me posted,” said Frik, going to get Beatrice up.

“Really bribery,” Seb said as they listened to the politician bemoaning that he was too busy to think about this right now, he was too busy looking for work for his son, these times were so difficult even for a university graduate, and, and Victor’s solution, that the young man come to work at the Vite Company, the corporation set up solely to invest the drawdown Adele received from her shares, which could be great depending on how tax laws were structured…

“I can’t listen to anymore.” Mrs Hudson stood. “I can’t follow most of it anyway. I’d better get dressed. Beatrice will be up and about soon.”

“We will finish this, one way or another,” Sherlock promised her as she left.

“I think the worst is yet to come,” said Seb, nodding at the speaker through which the final red USB drive was playing. It was a meeting of several men. “Because this ‘leaders group’ set up? Sounds like they’re carving up the country between them.”

“What’s an ‘unincorporated association’? Do I want to know?” Sherlock wondered.

“Its structure means they don’t have to publish their accounts or disclose their members. Businessmen. Lobbying. Mrs H was right to say _Dallas_.”

“Not lobbying. Although I don’t see what an American city has to do with anything.”

“No.” They listened to more. “ _Dictating_. Dictating policy. God. And I’ll explain about the show later. And how I wrote a letter to Sue-Ellen proposing marriage. Long story.”

  
Sherlock took notes of names and companies. In exchange for their massive annual donations, some in the millions, the men expected not to pay corporation tax as loopholes meant they could say they reinvested their profits in their companies; that their companies would be awarded government contracts; and Sherlock’s personal favourite, that a company one of them had failed several times to buy would have its multimillion-pound grant blocked.

  
“Turn it down,” begged Seb, as the group began discussing public policy: the relaxation of health and safety laws and a lower minimum wage. “I feel sick at Victor swanking and posturing with the big boys. Bet he had a huge cigar. And a Stetson. And the general public thinks bankers are amoral crooks.”

  
“You are,” replied Sherlock.

  
“Hey! That’s hedge funders, I’ll have you know. We traders are fine.”

  
“You are,” repeated Sherlock, taking Bea for a cuddle.

  
“Does Adele know? Did she know, I mean, and does she know now? Would she have been involved in…a cover-up?” Seb asked, meaning more, things he couldn’t voice in front of Bea.

  
“You know the easiest way to find out? We'll go and ask her,” replied Sherlock.


	27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

**Chapter Twenty-Seven**

“As simple as that?” Seb stared at him. “Just knock, pop in, and, “By the way, are you or have you ever been…”’

“You have to do this carefully. She’s an old lady and loves that company. She’ll lose face,” ordered Mrs Hudson.

“And we’ll need the right arm of the law for a careful approach. Who might take some persuading,” commented Sherlock, looking at his landlady, that clever, clever woman.

“I’ll put extra fried bread on. He loves that.” Mrs Hudson nodded back.

“All this full breakfast before a hard day’s crime solving. I bloody love it,” said Seb, looking into the kitchen and the aproned woman busy there.

“Watch your language in front of my goddaughter!” she reprimanded in response.

 

“Yeah, I see your problem, and this is big. No; no brown sauce thanks. Doesn’t need it.” Lestrade smiled and made soppy faces at Bea as he ate. “It is the Met’s remit, ’course, but you need someone from Specialist and Economic Crime. You know, the fraud lot? Funny. I always wanted to be on the Fraud Squad, as it was known then. I liked the name and though the stuff they did was, well, exciting. I suppose I watched too much telly.” He thanked Mrs Hudson for the extra mushrooms. Mrs Turner topped his tea up.

“Oh, our little angel’s looking so gorgeous today. And she’s so clever, helping you solve it! Who has a future on the force, then! Yeah, they have these special Fraud Teams set up, backed up by Financial Investigation Development Units. One must be working on something touching this. Oh, I shouldn’t, but I will,” was his way of accepting another rasher of bacon.

Sherlock nudged Seb’s ankle under the table, and Seb rose, lifting Bea to his shoulder as if to pat her back, turning so a lock of dark curls and a blue eye were visible over his shoulder. He encouraged a tiny hand up, and she ‘waved’ at Lestrade. No one could resist that mixture of coy and cute.

“I really think she knows me! Do you think she likes that new pram blanket? There’s this woman at work, in admin, crochets them at lunchtime, so I thought…”

“It matches her new coat very nicely,” said Sherlock. “It will look lovely with her eyes. Good choice of colour. We were wondering if you could take her out for a while, at the weekend, perhaps, while we deal with all the paperwork for the sale of the houses? Just to the park, maybe?”

“Me? No problem! Love to. Yeah.” He polished off his fried bread, his face ecstatic. “You know, I suppose I could triage this case, see who it should be progressed forward to. Yeah. That’d probably be best. Makes sense.”

“At least it’s not in the City. We don’t need the City of London police. No need to get Carter,” Sherlock said, then paused, staring around at the assembled host. “What? Why are you sniggering? What it is? I only said no need to get Carter.”

“My Sherbet. One of the reasons I love you is that you know jam all about pop culture,” Seb admitted.

“Jam all?”

“I’m inventing baby-friendly non-swearing expletives. That’s just a prototype.”

“I know you live and breathe finance, but one day you really do have to write,” said Sherlock.

“What makes you think I don’t? That I don’t have a blog that became a bestselling book?” Seb tapped his nose, and Lestrade was helped to a small slice of syrup roly poly, rather than take it for lunchtime, but with no custard, because of his waist. Seemed he was being led into a style Alli would have to live up to. Sherlock just hoped Bea’s godfather hadn’t eaten so much he couldn’t move. But it seemed okay – before long they were underway, he and Sebastian dressed well enough to pass muster with their landlady, and Lestrade helped into a smart tie. Before they left, Sherlock hid the one black disc safely in his cache, under the floorboard. He thought he knew what was on that.

 

“Geoffrey,” Sherlock greeted the butler who opened the door to them. He was too well trained to betray the emotions he must have felt on seeing a consulting detective with the man he believed was a private investigator and a Metropolitan police inspector, but his eyes were sad. He shot a sharp look at Seb.

Sherlock was pleased Lestrade was also too well trained to show the feelings, probably awe, he must be having as they entered.

“May I enquire if everything is…satisfactory?” Geoffrey asked, looking more stooped in the shoulders and lined in the face than he had last night.

“Speak freely. They understand. We found all the recordings.”

“It’s as serious as we were imagining?”

As Sherlock nodded, Geoffrey beckoned the maid over. She was more elderly than he’d imagined from the images of yesterday. “May I present my wife, Jean?”

“We’ve both been with the family a long time,” the small woman blurted out.

“I know. Chiara was like a daughter to you, and you care greatly for Adele. We’ll try our best.”

“This way, sirs.” It seemed that promise would have to do. They were taken into the small lift, right up to the roof garden. Sherlock betted Seb would be taking everything in – hadn’t he spoken about making a roof terrace? It wouldn’t be on this scale, of course. This was designed to capitalise on the views, with different areas set up to enjoy the different vistas over the city. It took a moment before he realised there was a figure seated at the table under the ornamental tree shading her. Adele was of the generation which didn’t sun worship.

The butler led them right to the woman, circling to come within her line of sight. She looked up as their shadows crossed her space. They’d seen various incarnations of Adele. The sassy sixties miniskirted hipster, the serious seventies political wife and businesswoman, famous for her trousers suits and wide-brimmed hats, excessive eighties power-suited matriarch forcing her daughter into marriage. But this, this shrunken old woman, still sitting straight and with both feet on the floor in her trademark stance, as if in readiness, her dark eyes huge in a hollow face, her head too big for her body, a prisoner of her own vanity or vulnerability? She didn’t seem like any sort of driven wheeler dealer or…murderer.

She fiddled with her hearing aid and arranged her huge shawl to cover it as Geoffrey announced them, explained they wished to speak to her about a very serious matter which was connected to her family. He presented Lestrade’s warrant card on his outstretched palms, and Adele studied it before staring hard at them all, one by one. Seb fidgeted. Honestly, thought Sherlock. You’d have thought he was used to that, from Rose.

“They wish you to listen to a tape recording, made in this house, ma’am,” Geoffrey explained.

“A series of recordings,” called Sherlock. “Put together for ease of listening.”

Adele didn’t ask any questions as to how and why and what. She merely gestured for another chair to be brought so there were enough, then waved for them to sit. The only time she spoke was to ask if they preferred tea or coffee, and then for Geoffrey to ensure the visitors were supplied. Jean rushed over with a full tray.

It was so very English, them sitting there, sipping coffee, making polite conversation, the staff standing behind, Adele staring hard at each of them in turn as she listened via the earphones to a tale of political intrigue.

“And you’re bringing this to me because…” They jumped when she finally spoke.

“Because this is an illegal practice…” Sherlock started.

“Did you hear me agree to it? Does it seem as I have any knowledge of it?”

“No one is accusing you, ma’am,” Lestrade said.

“Accuse _me_!”

“Indeed no. We feel sorry for you. You’re a woman of advanced years who’s being manipulated and abused by a younger man you believed cared for you.” And Sherlock did feel pity, especially now, as their hostess reacted to that statement. It was like watching a monument being toppled, a landmark implode. He switched to the second disc, and added, “We feel sorry for anyone who’s going through this.”

Adele listened but stopped it after a few minutes and sat with her face turned down to the table. The sequence of exchanges, one after the other like that, were hard to stomach, particularly the one of Victor raging that Adele was cruel and short-sighted not to indulge his artistic curiosity about the fabled jewels in the family safe deposit box, that she didn’t really care for him, was not really a patroness of the arts. But it was really his fault; he needed to stop having Adele be his whole life; he didn't want or deserve to be constantly disappointed by her inconstancy and tacit threats to freeze him out. He couldn’t take anymore always being hurt because Adele had better things to do with her life since he wasn't as important to her as he’d been led to think. It was a relentless tirade.

“You don’t deserve that, ma’am,” Lestrade butted in, earnestly. “He’s chased all your friends away by you re-arranging your life to keep him happy. But you’re not responsible for his life, his moods: nothing. He’s an adult, even if he doesn’t act like one. Bloody big girl’s blouse.”

“He has low self-esteem, and self-loathing, but that’s not something you can fix. You can try and try and give and give, but he's the only one who can do that. He needs to talk to a therapist about these issues,” added Seb, equally as earnestly. “He was a scared, self-centred man-child lashing out at the big bad world before he met you. Even if you gave in to everything he asked for and dedicated your entire life to him, you couldn't make him happy because he isn't happy with himself. You’ve found that out.”

Sherlock was silent, absorbing all of this. All this wisdom and understanding, and compassion for a stranger none of them knew. He wished he’d had that, when he’d needed it, even if he hadn’t known then he did need it. Would he have listened, profited from people’s understanding and acceptance of his missteps, his weakness? Would this proud woman?

“Adele.” He leant forwards, right into her space. “You’re not the first vulnerable and suddenly alone person he’s latched on to and exploited, not the first to suffer from and blame yourself for his treatment.” And slowly, carefully, he unbuttoned his cuffs and pushed his sleeves up, exposing the scars made by the wounds he’d self-inflected to release emotional pain when he was unable to cope with the misery, self-loathing, emptiness, guilt and rage he was living in and when shame and fear prevented him seeking help. He heard two matching indrawn gasps, one on either side of him, from his companions, and Adele’s hand flew to cover her mouth to prevent any noise escaping as she looked from his scars to his eyes, searching. “There are other ways of coping. Please. Let us help, like Chiara was helping, warning you about that snake and even bringing a private prosecution against him for undue influence and financial exploitation.”

“Sebastian? Again? And _Sherlock?_ ”

At the drawling voice, Sherlock tugged his sleeves down and hunched in on himself. Seb forced his hand into Sherlock’s and held it tight, then they both stood, and turned, and looked, and…laughed. Loud, heartily.

“What the hell is this?”

Victor was unshaven, flat-haired and brown-eyed. Obviously needed a coffee to get his contact lenses in. But that wasn’t it.

“Victor. Sorry. Really.” Sherlock waved a hand as he controlled himself. “Just, that dressing gown? _Really?_ ”

“Mate. Have you spotted the slippers?” Seb asked, and their guffaws started again. “Well, at least we know who he is today.”

“Yeah – stick a pipe in his gob and he’s Hugh Heffner!” Lestrade said, wiping tears from his eyes.

“They, they...were my husband’s clothes,” came Adele’s voice, gaining strength with each word. “But they didn’t look so bloody silly on him.” And she loosed a breathy giggling, suddenly sounding so much like Bea that Sherlock and Seb looked at each other in amazement.

“Still, he can’t be punished for bad taste, more’s the pity,” said Seb, above Victor’s increasingly loud questions and demands to know what the hell was going on. “Only for bringing about duress and committing tax evasion and making illegal donations to conspire in political fraud and bribery and corruption, or whatever other charges we can make stick, with this evidence. Oh, don’t bother destroying the recordings: we have tons of copies.”

“You’re _arresting_ me?” Victor’s voice was incredulous as Lestrade showed him his ID. “For protecting Mrs Avery’s interests?”

“For feathering your own nest, via manipulation, both political and personal. It’s despicable to see such inappropriate or excessive manipulation exerted to exploit a vulnerable , elderly person.”

The maid was already supporting Adele as Sherlock, knowing now Adele would never have lifted a finger against her daughter, added, “And when Chiara found out and would have exposed your filth, we think you killed her.” And then they saw not only how decrepit Adele was, as she literally sagged under the blow, but the reserves of strength and self-control she had to draw on as she straightened and stood, advancing on Victor.

“My precious daughter? She was my family, all I had. She was everything to me! You knew that! And you took her from me! You turned me against her and took her away! I swear to you I knew nothing about the business, the tax, whatever – and about that I don’t care. But my darling Chiara…” Geoffrey grabbed his employer’s hand as she scrabbled for something, anything, to hurt Victor with. He and his wife flanked her.

“What? Of course I didn’t! Why would I? She was nothing to me! No threat – nothing I could deal with! And you…” This to the three of them. “Get out of here. You can’t touch me. I have powerful friends.”

“No, Victor.” Sherlock shook his head. “You have allies, for expediency, temporary common interests, whatever. _I_ have friends.”

“Too right,” said Seb.

“I should cocoa,” added Lestrade.

“Wait. It’s true. He couldn’t kill anyone. Look at him!” Sherlock pointed at the idiotic-looking figure. He turned to Adele. “Chiara was all you had. Yes; you didn’t have more children. Didn’t? Couldn’t. You wanted them. And you’re an only child.” He let several small pieces of information rain down on him: Adele’s habitual feet-firmly-planted-on-the floor posture, her history of miscarriages, her bouts of dehydration, her daughter having put off motherhood until she was facing her ‘last chance,’ even the thick ‘granny’ tights Seb had mentioned Chiara wearing in late pregnancy …

“You have a blood clotting problem. Hereditary. Hence the small families. What do you take, some low molecular weight blood-thinning drug?”

Adele nodded, puzzled, astonished, particularly as he dashed off.

“Sherlock? Where are you going?” cried Seb.

“The mortuary!” he called back.

“What? Why? Wait! You know who killed Chiara, don’t you?”

“No one did. She wasn’t murdered. I’m going for proof.”

And he left Seb and Lestrade behind to deal with the arrest of that useless idiot as he sped off to the nearest pathology database and a willing helper to access it. But he didn’t get far: his black cab had only gone two streets before it stopped at a red light and someone forced his way in.


	28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

**Chapter Twenty-Eight**

“Mycroft.” Sherlock sighed with displeasure. “I think you’ll find they call this carjacking. It’s very much frowned on, I understand.”

“Here! What’s going on?” The driver was turning round to yell into the back, ignoring the green light ahead of him and the build-up of hooting, yelling traffic behind him.

“Don’t be alarmed. I’m his brother,” Mycroft answered the man smoothly.

“That don’t make it right!” cried the man.

“Exactly what I’ve been trying to tell our parents since I could talk,” Sherlock said. He fought not to spring forward in aid as one of Mycroft’s men ‘helped’ the cabby free, and another took his place. The operative who’d persuaded him out was talking to the irate man as the cab drove off.

“Better.” Mycroft settled himself. “Now we can talk.”

“You talk, you mean.” Sherlock folded his arms.

“Yes, very well. I need those recordings.”

Sherlock didn’t react to Mycroft’s knowledge, or him stepping in to mop up a political spillage. “They’re back at the d’Avalos house.”

“Yes, I know that. I was rather meaning your copies, Sherlock.”

“Oh. I don’t have them on me.” He made a show of patting his pockets, hoping Mycroft saw the childishly obscene gesture he made as he did so. He thought so: Mycroft’s sigh was heavy.

“So they’re at your flat. I see.”

And Sherlock chilled a little as Mycroft made a phone call, his gaze never leaving Sherlock. “Plan B, if you please.” After a pause, his lips tightened, and a harder light came into his eyes. There seemed less air in the car. “I see. Wait please.”

He looked…not as unruffled as usual as he held his hand over the phone to address Sherlock. “Your ‘friend’ is a thug. Well, so is your boyfriend, and most of the people with whom you associate, so what can one expect?” He raised an eyebrow in challenge.

“If you’ve…” Sherlock swallowed, and sight for calm. “Call off whoever else you’re sending. They’ll only get hurt. Or killed. As you said, my friend’s a brute. Not fussy.”

“I see.” Mycroft held his gaze, then plastered a thin smile on his lips. “What say we let him get a little exercise? Earn his keep. Show his mettle.” He spoke a command into the phone.

They sat in a hard, painful silence. Sherlock’s heart was beating fast, and he felt faint. Mycroft was bluffing, wasn’t he? He wasn’t that much of a bastard, surely? He knew the building was occupied, that the landlady lived on the premises. And probably when she was out. Her routine was regular. And he did have a score to settle with Sherlock – and Sebastian. And he presumably didn’t know…anyone else was there.

Sherlock started calculating, passing from _no_ to _how_. Did Frik own a gun? Would he use it, in a building which contained a…civilian? Sherlock had no doubt the guard would defend his charge to the last breath. Oh, why be poetic about it. To the death. And if there were any deaths, Mycroft’s would be one of them. If even one hair on Bea’s head were harmed. Sherlock let his eyes tell Mycroft that. He thought he might even enjoy it, no matter the consequences.

Mycroft was evidently listening to a commentary. “At least two? Someone’s got spare cash to flash.” He curled a lip at Sherlock. Sherlock was aching to take out his phone and call, see what was happening, but sat immobile. After what seemed an age, Mycroft said, “No; pull out. We can’t afford to deal with gunfire. Not without a different scenario in place. For which we’ve no time.” He scowled at Sherlock as if this was his fault, as if Sherlock had misplaced Mycroft’s library book and made him incur a fine, or delayed him and made him miss his bus. _Oh dear_ , his pursed lips said. Then his face sharpened as loud noises were heard through the phone. “The tyres? All of them? Even though you…Out, now. Find alternative means, you idiot. You’re not that stupid. Over.” He replaced his phone in his coat pocket, prissily, Sherlock thought. He was surprised Mycroft didn’t wipe it with his hanky before and after using it.

“I suggest you lay off.” Sherlock kept his tone calm, despite feeling jubilant. Which could be premature. “My guards have superior firepower and don’t have to fill in a form to use it and another to account for it after.” Mycroft stared at him, trying to unnerve him, and in the silence Sherlock’s phone beeped a message.

“Oh, do read it. Must be your security chap, reporting in. If he can write.”

“ _They_ , remember?” Sherlock was only guessing that Ben had been involved too. He didn’t bother mentioning both guards were highly educated. Jonas was presumably still waiting for Seb and Lestrade.

“Did he send a smiley face? Or a LOL?”

The message actually read _221 OK. Nice practice. Thanks._ and Sherlock swallowed a chuckle. He should have known there’d been no need to worry or doubt. The guards had escape routes and contingency plans all mapped out.

“Sherlock.” Mycroft polished his umbrella handle with his hanky. Knew it, thought Sherlock. “Where were you off to in such a hurry, hmm?”

“Barts mortuary. Well, any mortuary I’m known, really. If you’d be so kind…”

“Oh. Figured it out, have you.” Mycroft sounded almost bored, but he was breathing a little heavily. Why was he even here?

“Yes. Chiara d’Avalos Avery died of a pulmonary embolism. A blood clot in the deep veins of the legs which travelled and blocked the main artery of the lung.”

He swallowed as he said this, seeing it all, Chiara’s inherited blood clotting disease increasing the risk factors during pregnancy, with the risk the highest during the postpartum period, and dramatically heightening the odds for pulmonary embolism. She must have lived in as much quiet seclusion as possible during her pregnancy, the awful family situation notwithstanding, taking regular mild exercise to keep active. Probably walking, wearing compression hosiery, as when Seb had bumped into her. She’d even stayed in London to be nearer to her doctor and hospital and thought she’d escaped. Then the prolonged immobility of her drive to and from the factory…

“She stumbled on certain things. Accidentally. Pity,” said Mycroft.

“Pity for you. You and your pathetic power-mad, money-obsessed establishment cronies, laying down the law, keeping age-old practices running the way that benefits your elitist circle at the expense of others who could probably do things better, if differently and in ways you couldn’t oversee. Pity it’s over.” He knew he was speaking angrily. Savagely. He meant it, though.

“This won’t do, Sherlock. You’re planning to what, bring down the government?”

‘“They don’t, they don’t speak for us,”’ Sherlock murmured, completing the song lyric. Chris, somewhere safe in Oxford, would be pleased to hear his favourite band quoted. He enjoyed his brother’s puzzled frown. “I don’t care about your cosy world of privilege and patronage, however long it’s been up and running, no matter how much you argue that it’s the way things have always been done, that certain interests know best: whatever. I don’t give a fuck about queen and country.”

“About family?”

“Father, and you? Er, _no_.”

“That wasn’t quite what I was alluding to. I meant Sebastian.”

That was when Sherlock felt an icy drench of water, the death-chill of freezing fog.

“Where is he?” He was lucky to manage that through gritted teeth.

“Oh, your thug of a boyfriend is fine. I imagine he’s at Scotland Yard by now, with your police friend, working out a deal. You know, with all the help Mr Wilkes has been giving the police lately, they should make him a special constable. Like that racing driver chap. Oh, what was his name?”

“What deal.” Sherlock suspected the worse, Seb blackmailed, threatened…

“Why, reporting the discovery of these shocking underhand practices! Oh, and Victor Trevor takes the fall. Along with Vivian, Lord Grange, and a few other members of parliament and businessmen we’d just as soon be rid of. Make an example of. Spot of house cleaning for the PM. Like Putin, with the oligarchs. Time for a change.”

He stared hard at Sherlock, and Sherlock was forced to think quickly. He didn’t really care about business interests and ways and means of furthering them. It was all the same to him.

“I’m afraid Victor will be found to have been the driving force –” Mycroft ignored Sherlock’s snort – “behind the loans slash donations and the unincorporated association leaders group. Trying to crash the establishment party and persuading others in with him. Appalling. It’ll mean life imprisonment, and so awful for him when he’s dragged from somewhere public in handcuffs like a common criminal. I’ll tell you when, so you can watch. Be there, if you like. Oh, he’ll be disgraced, mainly for having failed.” As Sherlock remained quiet, Mycroft added, “The d’Avalos family are blameless, of course. No mention of Jack Avery, and poor Adele, sedated as she coped with the grief of two bereavements – quite unknowing and innocent.”

The cab had parked by now, and Sherlock peered out, working out where they were. And what to do. He had no doubt interest groups run by the rich for the rich was the way of the world, and he doubted he could do anything much to change it. Didn’t really care enough about it to want to. Seb would be pleased about toppling that leaders group, though. That bank, especially, and maybe smashing a tax avoidance route. And Victor would be punished, thus avenging Chiara. That was enough for Sherlock.

“You know, if Chiara had died because of this, because of your tinpot playing-God fantasies, I’d have killed you and father,” he commented, almost pleasantly.

“I know.”

“No you don’t!” Mycroft jumped at Sherlock’s tone, and Sherlock continued, his voice low and deadly. “Look at me, Mycroft. Really look at me.” He saw Mycroft flinch as he looked into Sherlock’s eyes, the cold, dead eyes of a killer, no pity, no remorse. “Now answer.”

“Yes. Yes, I know. Now.” Mycroft swallowed.

“And don’t come near me or my family again. I’ll make it look like an accident. I’ve already got it planned.”

“Wait. Sherlock.” Mycroft arrested the hand he’d extended as Sherlock went to leave. “Here. Take this.” He fumbled with his briefcase and pulled an envelope free to hold out. Sherlock opened it and looked at the sheets of paper it contained, more out of pity for Mycroft than anything else. The first was…a birth certificate. Not any old birth certificate: Beatrice’s. And not the one they had back at the flat. This didn’t have the space left blank under Father’s Name: it bore Sebastian’s full name, address and occupation. The other certificate was also a slightly modified version of one they had: this appointed just him foster parent of the infant known as Beatrice Maria d’Avalos Holmes Wilkes. Well, no need for Seb to be named foster parent now, if he was named actual father. He had no doubt this was all ‘legal’ and that the entries on file now matched these newer versions.The final page was a copy of ‘Sherlock’s’ application to the court for an adoption order.

“It will be easy to obtain. No one will object. It’s in everyone’s interests the child is happy and well cared for. I suggest you destroy her original certificate.”

“I suggest, no _insist_ , you don’t come near me or my family again.” Sherlock found his fingers had tightened around the envelope, instead of handing it back. This would be so much better. He tried not to see it as a deal with the devil. He caught the tail end of Mycroft’s smug look as Sherlock tucked the envelope inside his jacket pocket. “Oh. One more thing.”

There was just about room inside the back of the cab to get in a decent swing, he found out, as he firmed his fist and aimed, deliberately, carefully, hard and with concentrated force. It was the work of a second, and only took about that long to pick through the blood streaming from Mycroft’s mouth and take a trophy… Another tooth. Not the new root canal one, but no matter. As he exited the car, having wiped his hands on his gasping, squealing brother’s coat, Sherlock reflected that it was Seb’s turn to get the next one, and if this continued, never mind a mounted display, they should think about making a necklace. He headed home to his family. And when he reached Baker Street and saw the tow truck hauling away the carefully anonymous, undoubtedly official car with all four tyres shot out by precision marksmanship, he laughed.

 

“Pa says he’ll keep the copy of the tapes we’ve sent him at his bank. Extra back-up. And he says why not leak the news anyway, using one of those activist groups or journalists?” Seb put the phone down after his private talk with his father at the end of their video call to him, during which they’d all got the strength to play the one black USB brick and watch Chiara’s video will. Oliver swore to do his best as Beatrice’s guardian and trustee, and Sherlock had no doubts about that. It also fitted in well with Beatrice and Seb’s changed state, from which Seb was still recovering. He still held Sherlock’s hand clasped tight in his, and his eyes were still shiny. He kept staring over at Bea, who chirped back and waved again at Mrs Hudson and Mrs Turner popping up again to check on her. Mrs Hudson had eventually stopped prising more details about Adele from them.

“Shall we send this tooth to the same company who did this one?” Sherlock indicated the Perspex display, and Seb chuckled and nodded. He looked overwhelmed, and Sherlock understood. He looked around. All of this, all of the effort expended by all their friends, by all those who loved Beatrice. It was humbling. And so much yet to do. Rose had to be told…something. Alli too. Adele had a right to Bea. He wanted Amanda and Molly and Mike and his entire network to meet her. He still had to talk to his trustees about getting funds released to buy the house. Even his parents should have a chance to…be less awful. God knew he’d been given the chance. And, oh, John. He should… And Seb’s friends and co-workers must be curious about his paternity leave too.

“Mate.” Seb pulled him in for a kiss. “I know.”

“Don’t even suggest I breathe into a paper bag.” Sherlock raised a warning finger.

“There is one way out.”

Sherlock stared hard, narrowing his eyes at Seb’s expression, the light dancing in his eye, the tongue poked in his cheek. “Hmm. Let me guess. A big reveal?”

“Big reveal _party_ ,” Seb corrected. “Huge one. Lavish, swanky, memorable. Well, we’ve so bloody much to celebrate! But before that, I’m taking you to bed and screwing the gorgeous arse off you. After I’ve spanked it.”

“Oh yes? Knew you’d never hold out with all that abstinence-until-the-big-day. And a smacked bottom? Really? Did talking about school get you nostalgic? Are you…imagining me in a tailcoat and straw boater?” He bit his bottom lip to make Seb gulp. He let Seb pull him close to sway-dance a slow step or two, laughing when Seb hummed, ‘“I am a man filled with longing desire,”’ along with the CD playing.

“You deserve a spanking. Running off like that and getting me worried and leaving me with the clean-up.”

“And you think _that’s_ the way to modify my behaviour? Talk about a logic fail.”

“Oh. You mean you like it.” Seb halted, his gaze searching Sherlock’s eyes.

“I don’t actually know. But I might.”

“Oh, _mate_. That’s it. I’m dragging you off to bed now and not letting you out for at least a day. Your arse is mine.”

“And if I say yours is mine?” He just had to push it.

“First Jack Out will take care of choosing.” Seb nodded and snatched a deck of playing cards from his table.

“Although that’s not normally what’s meant by bedroom games, fair enough. I’m easy.”

“I know! And I thank God for it. Let me just check if Mrs Hudson will be okay with Beatrice for a bit.”

“I’ll be fine, dears.” Pink-faced, looking as if she wished she hadn’t popped back up just then, Mrs Hudson scuttled to the playpen and picked up her goddaughter.


	29. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

 “Well,” sighed Seb, almost unable to speak, stretched out full length before the fireplace.

“I know,” whispered Sherlock, just as exhausted, lying next to him, holding his hand.

“I might not move again.”

“You’ll have to get up to pee sometime,” Sherlock commented, also thinking about the party detritus which needed cleaning up. Unless Seb had someone – a team – coming in. He stroked Bea’s back and giggled as she snuffled into the hollow of their necks as she finally quieted. Seb used his free arm to tuck the blanket more securely around her.

“So envious of her energy levels!” he said. “She really loves a party, doesn’t she. We’ll have to watch that, as she gets older.”

“She’ll grow out of it.” Sherlock lifted his head over Bea settled between them to kiss Seb.”I mean, you were always a party animal, and look at you now. Knackered!”

He expected some wisecrack, but Seb said ruefully, “Yeah. That’s life. Our life, anyway. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. She was the prettiest here, wasn’t she. The belle of the ball, Belle.”

“Yes. And your safety in numbers idea…worked.” He smiled, thinking back of that evening’s big reveal party. They’d just invited everyone and anyone, with a complete disregard for numbers, or how well people would get on, and it had…worked.

“Do you think your parents have recovered the power of speech yet?” Seb’s eyes shone with merriment. And it was true – the Holmeses had been struck dumb, probably initially at receiving the hand-delivered invitation, then his father on seeing Bea’s birth certificate prominently displayed on the mirror above the chimneypiece, along with the foster parent notification and the blueprints for the remodelling of the two houses, and his mother by the sight of the tiny blue-eyed, dark-haired baby, looking so very beyond beautiful in her white dress as she peeped up and giggled at her guests.

“I thought Henrietta must have had a pair of Velcro gloves on, the way she seemed to stick to our daughter!”

“Huh, you can’t talk: what about your mother? Rose clasped Bea to her bosom on sight and had to have her wrenched away!”

“Yes. Still, Mrs H managed to prise her off. Eventually. Didn’t have so much luck against Adele.”

“No. And she is loud, isn’t she.” Sherlock’s ears were still ringing from the noisy exclamations and sobs and laughter.

“That’s the Italian blood. Mind you, Geoffrey and Jean were voluble too, and they’re English. I’m just glad everyone bought the story, that I couldn’t say anything until it was all officially arranged with lawyers.”

And if Sherlock thought Oliver’s guilty face had tipped Rose off and made her stare suspiciously at him and Seb, well, she’d said nothing, so he wouldn’t.

“And it wasn’t as bad with Alli as it could have been. She only stabbed you a bit.”

“And whose idea was it to only lay out plastic cutlery?” Seb raised a tired hand to tap his nose, then winced as his flesh wound pulled.

“Good thing that girl from the gym is trained in first aid,” Sherlock commented. “Is Frik still showing her where to put the medical box away?”

“Yeah. Been about two hours now,” Seb replied. “I’m desperate for bed. Is Chris…” He jerked his chin upwards.

“Think so, yes.” Another noise came down the stairs. “Yes.”

“And Rissa…”

“And Chessy. Who’d have thought it?”

“Mate, it’s always the quiet ones you have to watch.”

“It’s going to be complicated with Bea now. Working out a schedule for her with her godparents, and those are only from my side! And you chose so many. I thought it was only two.”

“It’s as many as one wishes.”

“Well, with yours, I think you’ve got every major profession and institute in the country covered, just in case she wants to try it when she’s older. Including the royal family.”

“School chum. And I had to make it up to him for all the bogwashing.”

“I’m not even going to ask.” Sherlock turned as much as he could without disturbing Bea. “But everyone wants to spend time with her! But I’m putting my foot down about New York. Lestrade can manage without her. But even so, there’s him and Alli – you realised they’re…”

“Yes, got it, thanks.”

“And Mrs H, and my parents, and your parents, and Adele…”

“Well, if Adele takes Martha and Marie up on their invite, that could be three in one? Oh, and wasn’t it uncanny, Mrs Hudson and Adele d’Avalos turning up in the same outfit! What are the odds? It was like one of those ‘who wore it best?’ articles!”

Sherlock snickered. Adele mentioning she’d never been greyhound racing, and the two ladies producing a special offer voucher for a group night out at the Wimbledon stadium had to be seen to be believed. A race card and a drink and a light supper, he recalled.

“Belle. Don’t fret. Bea’s PA will sort out her diary.”

“Bea has a PA? Our daughter Bea has a PA? Bea has a PA. Of course Bea has a PA. Silly of me.”

“She needs it. Not only her social life and doctors’ appointments to juggle, but all those free gifts and modelling offers from companies! Can’t you see her as the face of Baby Gap?”

“No.”

“Baby Benetton?”

“No. And don’t start whining about Baby Chanel again. I’m not going to change my mind. But, PA?”

Seb stopped pouting and replied, “Some girl Amanda wants to train up.”

“Oh. I’ll be the only one without; I’m sure you have one.”

“Umm. Beryl. Lovely lady.” Seb twisted until he could raise his bottle of water to his mouth. “Sir Alan’s former PA. She wanted to retire, but he asked her to work with me.”

“Oh?”

“Umm. Cure my…problem.” Seb made a gesture.

“Your…compulsive juggling?”

“Wandering hands. His words, not mine. I don’t think I… Well. Not now anyway.”

“A miracle cure. Good.”

“Ye…ah. Do you know how many bones there are in the hand?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Correct. And how many break easily?”

“Oh. Depends on the force used. But probably all the distant phalanges?”

“Ye…ah. Beryl couldn’t be here tonight. I think she was tossing the caber. Or karate chopping something. Or someone. You’ll meet her. But rest assured, my wandering hand days are over.”

“That’s not how the song lyrics go.” But he stroked the hand he held, feeling for bumps indicating broken and mended fingers.

“Well, I wasn’t jealous of your friend Matt. I thought it was perfectly sweet of you to ask him to work for the Foundation. Alleviate your guilt at using him, and all.”

“And Molly and he got on so well.”

Seb started laughing and Sherlock groaned. “I know you’re dying to crack some sort of pussy lover joke. You did well to hold back. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

  
“Aww. What else?”

  
“I’ll tell you later. Beamish is making sick faces.”

  
“That’s Murphy, dolt.”

  
“Is it?” Sherlock peered over at the playpen. “Oh yes! I thought he was here, there and everywhere this evening. Were the girl cat and the Persian here too? And did Beamish bring them or did you go and round them up?”

  
“Sort of half and half. It does them good, a change of scene.” Seb couldn’t meet his eye. Their hands tightened on Beatrice as she wriggled herself more comfortable. “She’s so beautiful. We’re so lucky. And you know what? It’s rotten being an only child. I mean, you practically were too; your brother doesn’t count. We should really think about a brother or sister for her. We don’t want the age gap too big.”

  
“Oh! Anything else you want to spring on me? Like, you want twins next time?” asked Sherlock.

  
“What…” They both scrambled up at the male voice from the doorway, disturbing Beatrice, and Sherlock held her close. She turned to see what was happening.

  
“No, not _what_.” John, standing there, coat on, a small case at his feet, stared around the room, at the aftermath of the party, then at them. Beatrice chirped a string of nonsense sounds and motioned him closer to inspect him. He obeyed, and she laughed as she grabbed his lapel and pulled him to her. “What’s the wrong question. It’s _how_.”

  
“How…” Sherlock lost his train of thought as Beatrice decided to dive onto John and mash her face into his, chattering at the cold feel of his skin.

  
“Yeah.” John looked pointedly at Seb, then smiled down at Bea who he held in puzzled delight. “ _How long_. How long…was I away?”

  
“Ah. I can explain,” began Sherlock, but was once again distracted, this time by Seb, who pulled his beeping phone free, read the message and crossed straight to the PC to make a Skype call.

  
“This must be urgent. She… I can explain,” he assured Sherlock. They saw the face of a pretty girl, creamy skin, a fall of long honey-coloured hair, and hazel eyes before she started speaking, quickly and emphatically.

Spanish? No, Portuguese, Sherlock thought in surprise. Seb answered more haltingly, asking questions, sounding as if he were being reassuring, and the girl, young woman, switched to English.

“And after our engagement you said –”

“Yes, I know,” Seb said quickly. “And I meant it. I always have. You know that. But this sounds –”

“ _Querido_ , just come. Please. As soon as you can. I need to see you.”

She rang off, and Seb turned to face Sherlock. “Erm, mate. That was Faun. Well, her name’s Rafaela, but no one calls her that. We met at this alternative health and fitness place, on my gap year.”

“You didn’t _have_ a gap year! And you, at some sort of bootcamp? Oh. You mean in rehab. When you were sent down.”

  
“A bit, yeah.”

  
“Did she say engagement?” John butted in, wrapping Bea in her blanket, but refusing to hand her over. He stared down at the circle of cats at his feet.

  
“A bit, yeah. But only to get her father to pay me to break it off. I needed cash you see, had been cut off, and …”

  
“Yeah, not really helping yourself there?” said Sherlock, more intrigued than angry.

  
“And she wanted to get out and back to her boyfriend. So her father handing out purses full of money and share certificates and dragging her away to spite her mother worked. And she’s decent – I offered to split the money, and she wouldn’t hear of it.”

  
“And….”

“Oh. Well, her boyfriend, husband by then, died a few years later. She nearly died too, but survived. She’s been a bit weird, well, weirder, since. Did you catch what she was saying, about the _Princess_?”

“Her mother? They’re what, like royalty or something?” John asked.

“That’s not it. She used the wrong gender. Not…that ship? The pleasure cruiser that capsized? She was on that when it sank, with her fiancé?” Sherlock remembered the tragedy. Most people didn’t – it was somewhat of a forgotten disaster, having been eclipsed by a number of other, more wider-scale catastrophes at the time, in the UK and internationally. But Sherlock had been in London at the time and had reason to recall the tragedy.

“It was their party. Her and Tassilo’s. He was a banker. But she was just saying – I think – that he’s got in touch with her from the beyond, and it’s what she’s always said, which is why they think she’s a loony, that it wasn’t an accident, that he was murdered.”

“That the cruiser was rammed on purpose, that all those people who died, that was murder? To target him, whoever he was? She’s insane.” Sherlock was glad that Bea sensed he was concerned and transferred her small body to him for comfort.

 “Mate.” Seb let out a sigh. “I owe her. That place. That –”

“Retreat?”

“Was awful, and she got me through it. We got each other through it. I have to go, if she needs me. At least just listen to her, calm her down. That’s what I do, but she’s obviously got worse, probably as the enquiry’s going to start soon. Finally. And you know what? Portugal’s a great place for a honeymoon.”

“And I bet you’ve got the ideal spot in mind.” Sherlock pursed his lips, but couldn’t keep the gleam from his eyes. That infuriating man!  
  
“Hang on, hang on.” John was probably cross because Bea was paying him and Seb attention now, Sherlock thought. “You’ve got yourselves a daughter. I can see she’s yours, and I don’t know how, considering she’s very beautiful and sweet-natured. You’ve got…a house and cats. You seem to have just thrown an engagement party – which I’m sorry I missed; didn’t get the text to get a plane in time. You’re talking about a honeymoon. Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, be thinking about getting married at this point?”

“Oh. Oh yes,” replied Sherlock, his gaze on Seb.

“Oh yes!” Seb replied, staring at him, his smile taking over his face. He stood close, close enough to cuddle both Sherlock and Bea. His grin was blinding now. “Indeed we should. And I can’t wait.”

 

 

Stay tuned for _The Rollercoaster Ride_ , aka the big-reveal party, a missing-fic fic from this series!


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